'R Xmas

Few directors can put loneliness on screen as persuasively or capture the eerie quiet of people waiting for something, anything to happen. It's in moments such as these, when all sense of time disappears and all that remains are bodies in motion and Ken Kelsch's limpid cinematography, that you remember just how good Ferrara can be.

Introduces a new Ferrara -- sophisticated and restrained. It's a look that becomes him.

R Xmas offers a poetic and profane ambiguity that's vintage Ferrara. The drug dealers are community leaders, the cops are corrupt, and the materialistic wife has unimagined emotional reserves.

Like any self-respecting Ferrara film, 'R Xmas has its intimations of hellfire, yet it's a weirdly benign Christmas fable -- something like "Miracle on 134th Street."

Despite the intriguing potential, the end result is a queasy stalemate.

The title refers to the commercialization of just about everything in modern society, and Ferrara brings touches of his ornery filmmaking imagination to bear on the pessimistic parable.

Once Ice-T sticks his mug in the window of the couple's BMW and begins haranguing the wife in bad stage dialogue, all credibility flies out the window.