THE SANTA TRAP (2002) ** Shelley Long and some doofus, she always somehow ends up with a doofus, fall for moving to California for boring 120 hour-a-week jobs; a cookie-cutter house in a community full of identicals, superficial neighbors, spiritually hollow children, a radio DJ preoccupied with the weather, and a golf course. Soon, surprise-like everyone, they begin to wonder if it was a bad idea. But get this: they wonder if it was a bad idea because people aren't returning their telephone calls fast enough. You've got to fucking give up, and once you do things take a turn for the better. Having given up you can appreciate that, in a mock-up of a world in which Santa Claus is driven away in a police cruiser with sirens wailing, where commando elves communicate by cell phone with North Pole HQ, where homeless people are reasonably happy about it...amongst all this is mixed in a hyper-realistic depiction of Southern California cops (I think they're real San Diego PD)...until the last 20 minutes where the thing becomes unrealistic. Dick Van Patten has good Santa eyes, and Stacy Keach is probably who you want as a sanitized biker. May we all seek what we find, and damned if all Shelley's problems aren't solved by giving her more work. Will wonders never cease?
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