Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

(On Cable TV, January 2022) As far as holiday comedies go, Unaccompanied Minors remains most distinctive today for being a pre-stardom film from comedy director Paul Feig, an interesting collection of known comics in cameos, and a premise (kids without supervision in a snowed-in airport) that could have gone to interesting places. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a spatial restraint even in a snowstorm, as Unaccompanied Minors only spends its first act in the airport before going away and diffusing its own mounting tension. Lewis Black is in fine form as a cranky anti-Christmas airport manager, but it’s noteworthy that the ensemble cast of young kids doesn’t sport many recognizable names—instead, you’ll have to look at the cameos for nice roster of circa-2006 American film comedians in small roles. It’s disappointing that the film couldn’t make the most of the assets at its disposal: Trying to dismantle teenage angst in time for the holidays sounds nice, but the film doesn’t quite get the balance right between the slapstick and the drama, and moving the plot away from the airport (well, other than tracking one father’s odyssey to make a tough drive to pick up his kids) ends up lowering the temperature of the result. Unaccompanied Minors is still watchable, not objectionable in the least… but a bit disappointing.