No matter how clever the script sometimes is, the laughs elicited by this movie are cheap, tinny sitcom laughs.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 29, 2024

Often cited by many as a favorite Christmas film. Why? Because it depicts family ties at its most honest and painful, which is closest to the truth of what and who we are, especially in the midst of fake cheer of the holidays. W/Pat&Ken At the Holidays!

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 17, 2023

Demme and the screenwriters take care to fill out the scenario with vividly drawn characters such as Raymond J. Barry’s sardonic police chief and Robert Steinmiller Jr.’s Jesse.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 6, 2022

If you are in the mood for something different at Christmas than The Ref might be a fun choice for you.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 21, 2019

A film so bleak even Krampus had to watch "Elf" immediately afterwards to regain his Christmas spirit. Rude, loud, funny and (apart from the home invasion by a gun-toting jewellery thief bit), pretty realistic about families and the festive season.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2018

It's not just a Denis Leary vehicle. It's a real movie, with drama and grace and intelligence (and slapstick and drunk Santa gags and crude laughs).

| Jan 4, 2017

A genuinely hysterical anti-holiday comedy.

| Dec 29, 2013

It's miraculous casting, and the Australian Davis -- for my money the finest actress around, bar none -- is simply uncanny in her command of East Coast gentility combined with razor-sharp timing and comedic expression.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 6, 2013

The Ref benefits from having actor's actors like Davis and Spacey in the leads.

| Dec 6, 2013

This is a funny idea, but the movie is too thinly written to build any real credibility, and the cast rarely seems in tune with the vapid vulgarities that dominate the dialogue.

| Dec 6, 2013

It's not a bad idea, but it's not a good movie, either.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 6, 2013

Whether it's a function of sloppy editing or sloppy writing, few of these supporting players and their accompanying subplots pay off.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 6, 2013

The Ref is a powerfully funny adult comedy. It skewers marriage, suburban values and the trendy belief that everyone is a victim of something.

| Dec 6, 2013

The trouble with The Ref is that it keeps running out of steam, so it seems to develop a new plot wrinkle every seven minutes. Typically, it'll run through the new idea until it runs out of steam again, then invents yet another one.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 6, 2013

While director Ted Demme seems to be trying to impose a Home Alone tone, he only succeeds in lending an air of desperation, with lame subplots blundering into the picture.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2013

A foulmouthed sitcom of a film.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 7, 2011

The Ref works virtually none of the miracles of [Richard LaGravenese's screenplay for The Fisher King,] his previous mix 'n' match effort.

| Mar 26, 2009

What makes most of this work is the brio of the acting, though the direction by Ted Demme and the script by Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss certainly don't hurt.

| Nov 27, 2007

It's cynical, mean-spirited and, at least at first, viciously funny.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 4, 2006

In his first starring role, comedian Leary makes his ranting career criminal strangely sympathetic.

| Feb 9, 2006