A Christmas Carol (2000) is an obscure version of the classic movie that I love so well. Here we do not have Ebeneezer, but Eddie Scrooge, played ruthlessly by Ross Kemp, as a 21st century version of a loan shark in England. There have been other off-the-wall versions of this classic, like the ridiculous Scrooge in the Hood, but this version is something to behold.
For over 15 years I have watched, loved and reviewed almost every version of A Christmas Carol that has been sent to the screen. I consider myself to be more than a connoisseur of this great classic, but an expert of some sort. This version is only superficially faithful to the original Charles Dickens novel, but the job that the Director Katherine Morshead and writer Peter Bowker did with Ross Kemp as Scrooge just blew my mind. This is a much darker version of Scrooge, a version that spotlights the difficulty of practical redemption. Once “the cat is out of the bag”, it is quite difficult to herd it back in.
To reveal the devastating spoilers in this version would be almost criminal and as a lover of this Christmas classic genre, I just cannot do it. The reveals and rewinds are just as masterful as they are surprising. Another pleasant bonus is that the movie is expertly edited, with a run-time of only 1 hour and 15 minutes.
All I can say is that I am thrilled that I ran across this little-known, but greatly rewarding version of my favorite Christmas movie.
Free to watch on Freevee Tv
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