Picture an amiable, kitchen-sink British update of The Miracle on 34th Street, in which Jim Broadbent’s Santa is banged up in Lambeth prison with his reindeers parked in Battersea. Now add the festive baubles of flying sleigh rides, twinkling northern lights and a slapstick machine gun that fires pellets of manure at the Metropolitan police. Rafe Spall’s ex-con has 24 hours to free St Nick and save Christmas for the kids. But the film is listing, overladen with cheap trinkets. Dogged, heartfelt acting works hard to prop it up.
• Jim Broadbent – the actor who rejected an OBE. And Only Fools and Horses
