Hey! It’s Jake Epstein! He’s the most overused and underrated Christmas actor. I think he also has multiple movies this year. Laughing All The Way is the first.
Aubri (Paniz Zade) is the comedy writer and personal assistant for comedy legend Bella Deldomino (Mary Walsh). Bella owns a comedy club that used to host a Christmas variety show but that ended years ago. In order to drum up business for the club, Aubri decides to bring it back. She runs into Mike Baxter (Jake Epstein), a comedian-turned-actor whose career is in a bit of a slump. Mike agrees to be the headliner for the show, in the hopes that it will revive his career as well as the club’s.
In my experience, Epstein’s films are either really good or really bad. Thankfully, this is one of the good ones. He has some amazing comedy timing and he was paired perfectly with Zade. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a Jewish angle as those are usually my favorite movies starring him. But I am easily appeased by good comedy songs and he brings them here.
Epstein doesn’t deserve all of the praise though. Zade does a great job at being both anxious and amazing at the same time. Ish Morris plays Aubri’s cousin Ian and he is the perfect “best friend” character for Aubri. And, of course, there’s Walsh. She pulls off the awful boss that you can’t help but love. The perfect foil for our couple. This may be the most perfect casting of a Christmas movie that I have seen in a long time. I’m almost sad it ended.
Rating: I want to see more people drink the awful green soda!