A HOBO CHRISTMAS (1987) **1/2 This is a very nicely put together film. You don't need to be a genius of the magnitude of, you know-Rex Reed or Siskel & Ebert-to notice that there's not much of a plot that you haven't seen a million times before, and little need for the Oscar voters to take note of it. There's nothing great about it; well, except William Hickey…but….the casting is great. I'm not saying great like if you have the budget and script for Titanic, but great for what they had to cast with. Gerald McRaney, for instance, has never struck me as one of the ten most talented leading me in Hollywood but he so perfectly looks this part that any inconsistent scenes have to be written off to surprising edges in his character. And to varying degrees, everyone's like that. Credible, if not brilliant characters to burn themselves indelibly in your memory. Scenes (repeats from every other Christmas movie ever made) that could have been hopelessly embarrassing if not downright irritating…maintain an authentic feel, despite their derivative nature. Maybe it's just the limitations of human experience, maybe it's that so many of us make the same few mistakes, I don't know, but this film worked for me.
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