Common Cold

Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) is a big-time attorney in a small-time town looking to make a break for it on Christmas Eve, so he and porn-makin' partner Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) steal two million dollars from a mob boss. Charlie looks like he's got his shit together, but he's merely a failure disguised as a success: He apparently spends all of his time warming bar stools in strip clubs, couldn't keep his marriage together, can't get his two little children to even acknowledge him (much less like him), and can't land the way-too-pretty owner of a rinky-dink strip bar (Connie Nielsen). A better title might have been It's a Miserable Life. If Groundhog Day was director Harold Ramis's Capra homage, this is his Capra parody, about a man doing the worst things imaginable at Christmastime to make his life just a little bit better come New Year's Day. The movie is fun if too familiar; we've been here before, even if Ramis hasn't.