Jingle All The Way (1996).

“It’s Turbo Time.”

Directed by the guy who dared direct A Christmas Story 2

Written by Randy Kornfield

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sinbad, Jake Lloyd, and Turboman

The Stage.

Howard Langston, a guy who would rather sell mattresses than hang out with his family, struggles to snap up a Turbo Man action figure on Christmas Eve in the pre-eBay world. Now he’ll do whatever it takes to get the elusive doll, including assaulting people, breaking and entering, infiltrating a counterfeit toy ring, and performing dangerous stunts that could have killed dozens of innocents, and yes…this is a kid’s film.

The Review.

I had seen Jingle All The Way before when I was a teen. I always thought of it as a fun turn for Arnold Schwarzenegger essentially playing Harry Tasker from True Lies, but only the boring part of his persona and it was also really the only Sinbad movie I could ever sit through from start to finish, as he’s a supporting character and a pretty entertaining one at that. Watching it as an adult, it’s funnier, but it’s also way more disturbing.

The setup is that Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a guy named Howard who is so busy selling merchandise that he doesn’t have a lot of time to spend with his kid. He leaves early, is home late, and is generally disconnected from his family. When he misses his kid’s Karate belt ceremony, the only way he sees to make it up is to find this Turbo Man doll, one that he was supposed to pick up two weeks ago but forgot. Now he’s scouring the city of Minnesota for the action figure. Sinbad plays a mailman, a divorced father who’s trying to get the same doll for his kid, and the two keep clashing at the locations where the doll might turn up. Phil Hartman adds another fun wrinkle to Arnold’s neighborhood, another divorced dad whose goals include giving his son a good Christmas and fucking all of the women on the block.

The film’s message is a condemnation of consumerism - allowing us to laugh at the ridiculousness of holiday shoppers as they trample each other in the search of the season’s hottest ticket. We’ve all been there - from the Tickle Me Elmo to the Playstation 5, as supply deplete and demand soars. Of course it heads towards an ending in which the kid is the one who teaches everyone a lesson about sharing and what’s really important during the holidays, and everything seems fine when it’s all said and done - Howard realizes the most important thing in the world isn’t actually the mattresses of strangers, but rather his own family, and Sinbad gets to check a Turbo Man action figure into the police that hopefully retains it’s value when he gets out of prison.

If that last part sounds strange, believe me…it is. As Arnold and Sinbad try to get the upper hand on each other in search of Turboman, each commits felonies that would undoubtedly get them sent to the big house for a very, very long time. These include faking a mail bomb inside of an occupied radio station building, giving the police an actual mail bomb which blows up in the hands of an officer who, had this been real life, would have spent Christmas in a fucking grave, and co-opting a Christmas parade in a dangerous display of violence, one that sees Sinbad chase a child up a giant Christmas tree decoration on top of a building which topples and probably should have killed them as Arnold throws uncontrollable projectiles and flies around the crowded streets with an out of control jet pack, even sending him through an apartment window, nearly killing a family as they sit down to eat Christmas Eve dinner. Side note, the jetpack scene has some of the funniest looking late-90’s CGI this side of The Lawnmower Man.

As the film crawls to a close, Turbo Man finally reveals to his wife and son that it was mild mannered mattress salesman Howard Langston all along in a scene that will leave you thinking, “How did they not know that it was him, considering he has a very distinctive face and voice - maybe he doesn’t want to be at home because his family is just really stupid.” Anakin Skywalker decides that Sinbad’s kid might need the toy more than him, so he hands it over. Sinbad is happy that his kid will have a good Christmas, but his joy is short-sighted, as without a doubt, he’ll be spending the foreseeable future behind bars for his various crimes. At least his kid will get an action figure under the tree as a reminder of why his dad can’t join them for Christmas until he’s got a family of his own.

The End.

Lampooning aside, I like Jingle All The Way. Sure, it’s ridiculous, but a lot of kids movies are (I mean, any of the traps in Home Alone would kill a human being). Arnold is having fun and really hamming up his role, Sinbad is pretty funny, and Phil Hartman knocks it out of the park like he always did. If you somehow haven’t seen this and are looking for a holiday movie that your kids will like (my kid has spent a considerable amount of time acting like he’s Turbo Man today) and that you’ll be able to laugh with…or at, this is a solid entry to your Christmas watchlist.