The Ref (1994) on Netflix
Cat burglar Gus flees a botched Christmas Eve robbery and, with police searching the town, takes a quarreling Connecticut couple hostage. Their son and relatives arrive for the holiday.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.9/1028,831 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes72%
Trailer
Plot summary
On Christmas Eve, Lloyd and Caroline Chasseur sit in a marriage counseling session in their Connecticut town, where Caroline's affair, their son Jesse's behavior and Lloyd's unwillingness to stand up to his mother Rose all surface. Elsewhere, cat burglar Gus sets off an alarm while robbing a mansion, and Murray, the partner waiting in the getaway car, is gone. Gus seizes Lloyd and Caroline at a convenience store and has them drive him to their home, where their arguing forces him to step in. Jesse comes home early from military school, police set roadblocks and a curfew, and relatives arrive to celebrate the holiday.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Ref (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Leary blamed the film's poor box office on the studio releasing it in early spring rather than the holiday season and centring his MTV-style persona in trailers and TV spots: "They did me like the MTV guy. And they shortchanged what the movie was all about."
- Richard LaGravenese co-wrote the film with his sister-in-law Marie Weiss, inspired by their families: "Both Marie and I are Italian Catholics who married into Jewish families, so we do have those big holiday dinners."
- Weiss began writing the script in 1989 after she and her husband moved from New York to California, the inspiration coming from an argument with him: "Wouldn't it be great if there were a third party to step in and referee?"
- Weiss wrote several drafts and consulted with LaGravenese in 1991 before they took it to Disney, where the studio approved the project within 20 minutes; LaGravenese then spent a year revising until he got "tired of doing rewrites for executives".
- Director Ted Demme had already directed comedian Denis Leary in No Cure for Cancer, a stand-up comedy special for Showtime, and the studio cast Leary on the sarcastic funny-man persona from MTV spots Demme directed; he joined as part of a three-picture deal with Disney.
SPOILER
After test audiences responded poorly to the original ending, in which Gus turns himself in to show Jesse that a life of crime leads nowhere quickly, a new ending was shot in January 1994.
