Christmas Trade is a psuedo-seasonal lump of coal

Imagine a Christmas version of Big, then take away any of the wit and charm, dumb down the dialogue a little more and you’ve got an idea of Christmas Trade. It stars William Baldwin as a recently widowed dad to a young teen boy, played by Michael Campion. Denise Richards is Chloe, Baldwin’s girlfriend who hasn’t been introduced to Campion yet.

Body switch comedies have their place, but they also have stock elements that exist to ramp up the laughs. Christmas Trade did the body switch part, but left out the laughs unless you’re between 6 and 9.

A magical bear shows up on their front door as we see the tough life of the teen and busy day that dad has. During an argument the bear lights up and the two switch bodies. Now how will the two deal with each other’s day now that they’re walking in their shoes? If you’ve seen 17 Again, Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son or any other body switch movie you know what happens.

And you’ve seen it done much better.

The scenes in Christmas Trade are too long. Even watching some of the film in fast forward they were long. If the film was cut different ways or had zippy dialogue that compelled me to watch all of it, then would be a different story. At 100 minutes long it feels bloated and could’ve benefitted by some of it ending up on the floor.

Tom Arnold shows up as the person who is called in to fix the bear. His charm is the bright point in the film, but unfortunately for viewers, his scenes are too few and too short.

The awkward, pseudo romantic scenes with the body switched dad are here.  As are the childhood bullying and girlfriend scenes. You get the picture. What’s also disappointing is that there isn’t much ‘Christmas’ in Christmas Trade.

Don’t let the Christmas scenes one the movie’s poster fool you. True, the film takes place over Christmas, we see some Christmas trees and the characters go shopping, but that’s it. Usually Christmas movies have a warmth and at the bare minimum, a little heart. Watching this you forget that it’s a Christmas film until a party scene at the end when Richards shows up with a puppy for Campion.

There aren’t enough laughs or fun for Christmas Trade to be in the body switch genre.

There’s not enough Christmas in Christmas Trade to keep fans of that genre interested.

There are better ways to spend your valuable Christmas movie time instead of watching this.