I'll Be Home for Christmas

...and I'm changing the locks. One does not have to be a Scrooge to resist the modest charms of this hambone holiday comedy that travels the same road as Plains, Trains and Automobiles, but lacks that film's likable, empathetic characters. Former Home Improvement heartthrob Jonathan Taylor Thomas is Jake Wilkinson, a smug, smartmouthed con artist, the new king of his California college campus. He plans to cash in the first class plane ticket his estranged father (Gary Cole) has sent him to return home to New York for the holidays, and spend a "Christmas in paradise" with his girlfriend (Jessica Biels). Desperate dad offers a bribe: if Jake makes it home in time for Christmas dinner, he can have the vintage 1957 Porsche the two have labored to restore. The only problem is that college jocks, who believe Jake has swindled them, have left our hero(?) donned in gay apparel (a Santa Claus suit) out in the desert with no money. Jake's desperate cross-country odyssey and his encounters with a gallery of colorful characters (including a carload of elderly Vegas-bound Tom Jones fans and a lovesick policeman who hopes "Santa" can rescue his marriage) predictably instill the requisite change of heart. Recommended, if only because the price is right, Thomas is popular and, after all, it's Christmas. Aud: P. (K. Lee Benson)