Danny Dyer Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Tinsel Town’ (2025) starring Kiefer Sutherland, Derek Jacobi, Jaimi Barbakoff, Danny Dyer, Matilda Firth, Theodora Williams and Rebel Wilson

December 15, 2025

by Carla Hay

Kiefer Sutherland and Rebel Wilson in “Tinsel Town” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

“Tinsel Town” (2025)

Directed by Chris Foggin

Culture Representation: Taking place in Stratford, England (and briefly in California), the comedy/drama film “Tinsel Town” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A difficult and cranky American actor alienates himself from getting work in the United States, and he finds himself reluctantly starring in a musical pantomime version of “Cinderella” at a regional music theater in Stratford, England, during the Christmas holiday season.

Culture Audience: “Tinsel Town” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and corny holiday movies that with a lot of terribly written dialogue and scenarios.

Kiefer Sutherland, Matilda Firth, Rebel Wilson and Theodora Williams in “Tinsel Town” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

It’s ironic that the cheesy comedy/drama “Tinsel Town” is about a well-known actor who’s reduced to being in a low-quality acting project (a tacky musical for regional theater) because it also explains why Kiefer Sutherland is in this embarrassing movie. One can only conclude that just like his character in “Tinsel Town,” Sutherland only signed on to this project because he needed the money and couldn’t find better work. In “Tinsel Town,” Sutherland looks like he doesn’t have to do much acting when he has to act frustrated and angry that he’s stuck in this career downgrade rut.

Directed by Chris Foggin, “Tinsel Town” was written by Frazer Flintham, Adam Brown, Piers Ashworth and Jake Brunger. The movie takes place primarily in Stratford, England, but “Tinsel Town” was actually filmed in Leeds, England. There are no surprises in this substandard film, unless you might be surprised at how bad it gets with cringeworthy dialogue and idiotic plot developments.

“Tinsel Town” begins with action movie star Bradley “Brad” Mac (played by Sutherland) on the set of his movie “Killing Time VII,” somewhere in California. Viewers are told that “Killing Time” is a series of silly action flicks that are Brad’s main claim to fame. Brad is the “hero” in all of these movies. He’s also famous for using the catch phrase “All you need is me” in this movie franchise.

While taking a break from filming a scene with a co-star named Martha (played by Jennifer Biddall), who has a “damsel in distress role,” divorced Brad asks Martha out on a date. Martha’s sarcastic response is to ask Brad if her husband and kids can come on the date too. It’s “Tinsel Town’s” way of showing that Brad didn’t care to find out first if Martha was single and available before asking her out on a date.

Shortly after he’s done filming “Killing Time VII,” Brad finds out from his unnamed agent (played by Katherine Ryan) that he doesn’t have any more jobs lined up. His agent tells Brad that no one wants to hire Brad because “you’re difficult, you’re late, you refuse to do your own stunts, you don’t remember names, and you failed your medicals.” Brad’s response is to say that he could do an acting role as Barack Obama, “with the right makeup artist.”

The agent suggests that Brad try doing a theater stage production in England. Brad has only done movies in his acting career, and he’s only taken one acting class in his life. However, his estranged daughter Emma (played by Matilda Firth), who’s about 10 or 11 years old, lives in England. Brad needs the money and thinks working in England would be a good opportunity to spend time with Emma, so he accepts the offer to do the stage production in England.

Like a fool, Brad doesn’t ask what the stage production is about. All he knows is that he think he’s going to have the starring role. When Brad travels to England, he’s rude to a fan (played by Andromeda Godfrey) on the airplane. Upon arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport, Brad is greeted by a friendly young driver named Nigel (played by Mawaan Rizwan), who tells Brad that they are going to the Savoy.

Brad thinks that Nigel means the upscale Savoy Hotel in London. Brad falls asleep in the back of the car. But when Brad wakes up, he finds out that Nigel has actually taken him to a place called the Savoy Guest House in Stratford, which is about two hours away from London. Brad has a small room at this guest house, which is most definitely not upscale.

Brad soon finds out that he was hired for the supporting role of Buttons (Cinderella’s best friend/servant) in a musical pantomime version of “Cinderella” for a small non-profit regional theater group, which performs at the Stoneford Theatre Royal in Stratford. The group’s biggest annual fundraiser is the production that it has for the Christmas holiday season. “Cinderella” is the group’s major fundraiser production for this year.

Not surprisingly, Brad is furious and wants to back out of this musical. The musical’s no-nonsense director Cassandra Collins, OBE (played by Meera Syal) reminds Brad that he can’t get out of his contract. And if he does try to get out of the contract, the legal fees would be a lot more than if he stayed and did the production.

There would be no “Tinsel Town” movie if Brad quit. He reluctantly stays. Expect a barrage of stereotypes and boring scenes showing a grumpy Brad as a “fish out of water” in not only a different nation but also doing the type of acting job that he’s never done before. The person he clashes with the most is Jill (played by Rebel Wilson), the musical’s sarcastic choreographer. Wilson, who is Australian in real life, has a very unconvincing British accent in this dreadful movie.

Other members of this “Cinderella” production are cast members Izzy (played by Savannah Lee Smith) as Cinderella; Callum (played by Lucien Laviscount) as Prince Charming; Brenda (played by Maria Friedman) as the Fairy Godmother; and drag queens Danny (played by Asim Chaudhry) and David (played by Jason Manford) as Cinderella’s stepsisters. The venue employees include production manager Russell (played by Ray Fearon); box office worker Hilda (played by Barbara Ashworth); stage door worker Albert (played by Derek Jacobi); sound engineer Jonty (played by Dominic G. Britton); lighting director Frank (played by Sean Grogan); and cleaning services staffer Jean (played by Doreen Jackson).

The movie is a little too cluttered with cast members for such a simplistic main plot. “Tinsel Town” makes all of these above-named characters pipe in with lines of dialogue that could’ve been said by less cast members. However, less cast members still wouldn’t make the dialogue any better. It would just reduce the number of annoying or useless characters in “Tinsel Town.”

At one point during rehearsals, Brad is acting like an egotistical jerk because he thinks he’s too good for this musical. As he storms out of the room, he barks this order at no one in particular, so he can leave the premises: “Call me a car!” Danny replies, “You’re a car.” This is the type of brain-dead dialogue in “Tinsel Town” that sounds like the type of stale comedy that even 8-year-old kids wouldn’t think is funny.

Brad’s daughter Emma is a sweet and sensitive child who lives with Brad’s British ex-wife Grace (played by Alice Eve) and Grace’s current (and very metrosexual) husband Spencer (played by James Lance) in London. Spencer is so metrosexual, he likes to knit and comes across more like Emma’s gay best friend than her husband. Brad and Grace split up several years ago, and she moved back to England after the breakup.

Even when they were married, Brad barely paid attention to Emma because he was too self-absorbed and caught up in his career. Now that Brad is in England, he’s trying to make up for lost time with Emma. It should come as no surprise that Emma doesn’t really trust Brad because he’s let her down many times before. Grace is also wary of Brad, but it just so happens that Grace and Spencer will be going to Paris on vacation. Guess who has to take care of Emma while Grace and Spencer are away?

And what a coincidence: Jill has some child-rearing issues with her ex-spouse too. Jill’s outgoing 13-year-old daughter Cara (played by Theodora Williams) lives with Jill, but Jill’s spiteful ex-husband Kieran (played by Danny Dyer) wants joint custody of Cara. Jill and Kieran got divorced because he’s dishonest and has stalker tendencies, as seen in the movie. In her performance as Jill, Wilson does her usual schtick of playing a character who is tough on the outside and tender on the inside.

“Tinsel Town” has very clunky and awkwardly filmed subplots that make the movie worse. One of the sublots is Izzy and Callum have a secret crush on each other but are afraid to tell each other. Most viewers won’t care and won’t be surprised by the outcome. Meanwhile, the feud between Jill and Kieran escalates into a very distracting plot development that is clumsily resolved.

Another poorly conceived subplot is Brad’s guest room has a break-in, so Albert offers Brad a place to stay in Brad’s home. It’s all just a contrivance for Brad to act like he’s the neighborhood watchdog, and for Albert to make a confession to Brad about his personal life. This confession surprises Brad.

And perhaps the worst subplot is when Brad gets into legal trouble (for reasons that are explained in the movie), which culminates in a courtroom appearance that is so stupid, you’ll be convinced that the “Tinsel Town” filmmakers hate people who love good movies. Jaimi Barbakoff has a supporting role as Brad’s American attorney Sukie Huntington III, who apparently doesn’t know that American lawyers who aren’t licensed to practice law in the United Kingdom can’t represent their clients in this type of U.K. courtroom.

All of the acting in “Tinsel Town” is average to terrible, with Sutherland looking uncomfortable the entire time. His dancing is painful or hilarious to watch, depending on your perspective. As for the “Cinderella” musical, it’s like a unintentional parody of all the worst things that people say about regional theater run by untalented amateurs. If you waited your whole life to see Sutherland and a group of actors perform Katy Perry’s “Roar” in an awful movie about a has-been, egotistical actor who’s starring in a cringeworthy “Cinderella” musical, then “Tinsel Town” is the movie for you.

Brainstorm Media released “Tinsel Town” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on November 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Christmas Karma’ (2025), starring Kunal Nayyar, Leo Suter, Charithra Chandran, Pixie Lott, Danny Dyer, Boy George, Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter and Eva Longoria

November 16, 2025

by Carla Hay

Kunal Nayyar in “Christmas Karma” (Photo courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment)

“Christmas Karma” (2025)

Directed by Gurinder Chadha

Some language in Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in London and in Uganda, the musical film “Christmas Karma” (inspired by the novella “A Christmas Carol”) features an Asian and white cast of characters (with a few black people and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Greedy and hateful financier Eshaan Sood, an Indian Ugandan immigrant living in London, rethinks his negative attitude during the Christmas holiday season when ghosts from the past, present and future show him his life.

Culture Audience: “Christmas Karma” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and musicals that have star power and little else to offer that’s entertaining.

Eva Longoria, Billy Porter, Boy George and Hugh Bonneville in “Christmas Karma” (Photo courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment)

“Christmas Karma” is a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to turn “A Christmas Carol” into a British Bollywood musical. The movie’s original songs are terrible, the acting is often cringeworthy, and this off-balance movie goes from bad to worse. The movie’s rewriting of the main character to have a refugee story is an admirable attempt to do something different from the original source material of “A Christmas Carol,” but this alteration is more awkward than seamless. In addition, the visual effects in Christmas Karma” are almost as tacky as the movie’s songs.

Written and directed by Gurinder Chadha, “Christmas Karma” keeps many other basic elements of “A Christmas Carol,” the classic 1843 novella written by Charles Dickens. The main character is still a miserable businessman who is both greedy (when it comes to his personal wealth) and stingy (when it comes to being generous to other people). In “Christmas Karma,” the main character has been changed from elderly wealthy bachelor Ebenezer Scrooge to middle-aged wealthy bachelor Eshaan Sood (played by Kunal Nayyar), who is bitter and unhappy in all aspects of his life. Instead of “Bah, humbug!” as an expression of disapproval, Eshaan Sood says, “Bah, quass!”

Eshaan (who prefers to be called Sood) is the owner of a financial investment company called Marley & Sood, which he inherited after his former boss/mentor Jacob Marley (played by Hugh Bonneville) died an untold number of years ago. During the Christmas holiday season, Sood doesn’t let the employees use the heating system in the office when it gets too cold. And to make things worse, he fires a group of employees who dare to complain about their dismal working conditions. Sood is also a terrible boss to his housekeeper Mrs. Joshi (played by Shobu Kapoor), whom he expects to work on holidays. He refuses to give Mrs. Joshi a Christmas bonus. He tells Mrs. Joshi that she shouldn’t celebrate Christmas because she’s Hindu.

The only person who seems to like Sood is his loyal Marley & Sood employee Bob Crachit (played by Leo Suter), who struggles to financially support his wife Mary Crachit (played by Pixie Lott) and their four kids: son Tiny Tim Crachit (played by Freddie Marshall-Ellis), son Peter Crachit (played by Charlie Hodson-Prior) an unnamed eldest son (played by Finn Guegan) and unnamed eldest daughter (played by Olivia Brody). Tiny Tim is the youngest child, and he happens to be disabled. Sood reluctantly grants Bob’s request to get a salary advance to pay for Christmas gifts for Bob’s family. Sood rudely says to Bob: “Why’d you have so many kids then?”

Sood is very prejudiced against poor people and immigrants, even though he’s an immigrant who used to be poor. During the part of the story where he revisits his past, it’s revealed that he and his family were Indian immigrants living a comfortable life in Uganda until they were exiled by Uganda’s dictator president Idi Amin, who ordered a mass deportation of Uganda’s Indian residents in 1972, with these exiles having only 90 days to evacuate. Eshaan Sood (played by Skanda Arun), who was 7 years old at the time, had to leave behind the family’s pet West Highland White Terrier with his Ugandan best friend Akiiki (played by Prince Mwangi), who was also 7 years old at the time. Losing his dog and his best friend broke Eshaan’s heart.

Eshaan, his widower father (played by Anil Desai), and Eshaan’s unnamed older sister (played by Inara Ansari), who was an adolescent at the time, relocated to London. Eshaan’s grandmother (played by Vaishali Morjaria) stayed behind in Uganda because she was too elderly to travel and was apparently exempt from the deportation for this reason. In her goodbyes to her family members, she gave young Eshaan a gift (which shows up later in the movie) and advised him: “With wealth, you’ll always have respect.”

Eshaan’s father died soon after the family arrived in London. Eshaan and his sister were put in the foster care system, where they lived in poverty and experienced hostility and racism. The movie shows Eshaan from the ages of 17 to 23 (played by Bilal Hasna), when he was known as Eddie Sood. During this period of time, he experienced heartbreak with his first love Bea Fernandez (played by Charithra Chandran), for reasons that are explained in the movie.

Sood’s sister is now deceased. His sister’s young adult son Raj (played by Shubham Saraf) has a wife and kids, but Sood wants nothing to do with them. Sood doesn’t respect Raj because Raj doesn’t make enough money to get Sood’s approval. In the beginning of the movie, Sood impolitely rejects Raj’s invitation to go to a Christmas party at Raj’s home. Sood also seems to be racist because he openly disapproves of Raj being married to someone who isn’t of Indian heritage. Raj’s wife Emily (played by Laura Baldwin) is white and British.

Just like in “A Christmas Carol,” the central character of “Christmas Karma” has a nightmare where he sees the ghost of Marley, who tells him that three more ghosts will also be visiting: The Ghost of Christmas Past (played by Eva Longoria), the Ghost of Christmas Present (played by Billy Porter), and the Ghost of Christmas Future (played by Boy George), who each shows Sood his life during these respective time periods. Marley tells Sood that Sood has a chance to change his life “before it’s too late.”

Porter is the only one of these ghosts who is a standout singer in the movie. Fans of Boy George will be disappointed to see that Boy George doesn’t get a big solo song but has to warble alongside Porter, who steals every scene where Porter appears. Longoria, dressed as a Dia de los Muertos ghost and accompanied by a mariachi trio, makes sarcastic quips but doesn’t have a big musical moment as the Ghost of Christmas Past. And the less said about Suter’s off-key singing, the better. Danny Dyer has a supporting role as a singing cabbie, whose only purpose in the movie is to be just another person who experiences Sood’s obnoxious attitude.

Strangely, even though Nayyar is the star of this musical, he doesn’t sing any lead vocals or solos in this confounding movie. Nayyar is shown singing in some group performances, presumably to hide the fact that he doesn’t have the singing talent to sing lead vocals or solo vocals on any of the songs. It’s absolutely ridiculous to make a movie musical if the star/main character doesn’t even have any extended moments to sing solo or lead vocals. As for Nayyar’s spoken dialogue performance, it goes from mediocre in the beginning of the movie to very hammy by the end of the film.

“Christmas Karma” also makes some other odd choices, such as the character of Bob having more singing time on screen than the Ghost of Christmas Future. In other words, the “Christmas Karma” filmmakers foolishsly decided to make Boy George have less singing in the movie than an actor who doesn’t sing very well. Another inexplicable choice: Tiny Tim (a character who is supposed to be charming because he’s so humble) thanking the National Health Service in his list of thank yous/blessings and bragging in this not-so-humble statement: “I give the best hugs.” Why is Tiny Tim thanking NHS, when the movie clearly mentions that the Cratchit family is struggling to pay all of their bills, including Tiny Tim’s medical bills? Don’t expect this movie to answer that question.

This musical’s original songs (by Gary Barlow, Nitin Sawhney, Shaznay Lewis, Chadha, and Ben Cullum) have subpar lyrics and forgettable music. (Lewis has a small role in the movie as Carol, one of the backup singers for the Ghost of Christmas Present.) Songs like “Christmas Karma,” “Manz a Scrooge,” “A Gift Is Still a Gift,” “Money Talks,” “Pain of the Past,” “Rise Up,” “The Big Bah Quass Song” and “Favourite of the Year” do little to further the story and just highlight how low-quality the songs are. The film editing for “Christmas Karma” is so sloppy, there are several parts of the movie where the songs being performed don’t match up with the performers’ lip movements.

The backstory about Sood being a refugee from Uganda is meant to have tearjerking impact, but that impact is diluted by the time the movie gets to the very truncated section where the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Sood what will happen if Sood doesn’t change his mean-spirited and selfish ways. In fact, the backstory takes up so much of the movie, the sections with the Ghost of Christmas Present and Ghost of Christmas Future have increasingly diminished screen time in comparison. The movie’s song-and-dance numbers are more Hollywood than Bollywood, with only two songs (“The Big Bah Quass Song” and “Favourite of the Year”) getting anything like a Bollywood-styled production. Indian British bhangra singers Jassi Sidhu and Malkit Singh make cameo appearances as themselves.

Even if the movie’s acting falls short of being great, “Christmas Karma” should have had at least been able to deliver appealing and catchy original songs, but the movie utterly fails on this basic musical level. “Bend It Like Beckham” director Chadha is capable of making a good music-oriented film, as evidenced by the 2019 drama “Blinded by the Light,” an underrated gem that Chadha directed and co-wrote about a Pakistani British teenager who is passionate about Bruce Springsteen’s music. Unfortunately, “Christmas Karma” is an embarrassing misstep in her filmography that is more likely to irritate viewers than put them in a joyful holiday mood.

Ketchup Entertainment released “Christmas Karma” in select U.S. cinemas on November 14, 2025.