Jingle All The Way, which stars none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger as a desperate dad on a mission to buy his son's love by way of an elusive action figure on Christmas Eve, makes for a wholly uncomfortable and jarring viewing experience. There's something innately grating about the whole set-up in general, but watching Schwarzenegger falling over, being tricked and generally having a bad day as everything he does ends in calamity or violence isn't entertaining - it's completely agonising. Then you throw Sinbad into the mix, who is not only an annoying actor generally, but has been placed into the movie to be purposely annoying. As you can imagine, things get irritating very, very quickly. Jake Lloyd stars as Schwarzenegger's kid, and though he's supposed to be cute he just comes off as selfish and obnoxious. Worst of all, after sitting through the whole film, he decides that he doesn't even want the toy - seriously, kid?!
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
