If I were to subscribe to the theory that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, I'd have to end this review of the locally produced, Pax-TV movie "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" right here.
But that would, of course, be abrogating my responsibility as a critic to tell it like it is. And the unfortunate truth is that "Mommy" is awful.
The concept behind the telefilm (Sunday, 8 p.m., Ch. 16) is strange enough. Young Justin Carver (played by Dylan and Cole Sprouse of "Big Daddy") is under the misapprehension that his mother (Connie Sellecca) is cheating on his father (Corbin Bernsen) — with Santa!
Really.
So Justin decides to misbehave as badly as he possibly can to keep that home-wrecking Claus away from his mother.
Along the way, the movie lurches from one awful scene to the next. There's an astonishingly awful bit early on when the parents of Justin's best friend announce they're getting a divorce — in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner! (Nice family film, huh?) And, in a horrendously failed attempt to mimic "Home Alone," there are waaaay too many scenes of young Justin battling an otherwise innocent mall Santa.
All of which leads up to a climax that steals liberally from "Home Alone" — liberally but not well. It's just plain bad.
And there are a couple of ham-fisted plot developments in the final minutes that come from nowhere. The finale seems to be pasted in from another movie.
Even Laurence Olivier and Meryl Streep couldn't make "Mommy" work. Much of the blame for what amounts to a TV movie trainwreck has to be laid at the feet of director John Sheppard, whose previous credits include such atrocities as "Just Sue Me," "Snowboard Vacation" and "Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde."
Sellecca and Bernsen have done good work before. As have the Sprouse twins. The fact that they're dreadful in "Mommy" can't be entirely their fault.
And, remember, all the local actors in the movie — who I'll refrain from naming to protect their reputations — had to work for that same director.
About the only reason for anyone in Utah to watch this movie — unless they happen to have a friend/relative in the cast — is to see the local sites, which include everything from Temple Square to the One Utah Center building to the Salt Lake City-County Building to the Cottonwood Mall. Fortunately, the setting is never identified as Utah and none of the sites are unidentifiable to anyone who hasn't spent time here.
Thank goodness.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com