"I've made a massive mistake," groans Robert De Niro's dying cancer patient as he shuffles off the perch alone and unloved as the year draws to a close in New York City.

Correction Robert, your agent has made a massive mistake.

Hamming it up in an oncology ward as a loner who's alienated his family, he's joined by a roll call of Hollywood's brightest shamelessly aping the till-tinkling template of director Garry Marshall's previous star-studded money-spinner Valentine's Day.

It's basically Love Actually without the, erm, wit, pathos, humanity, humour and modest wage bill of Richard Curtis' seasonal luvvie-in.

Look, there's Ashton Kutcher playing a party-pooping curmudgeon. And Michelle Pfeiffer, shedding her dignity as a an office frump throwing caution to the wind. Oh and here comes Katherine Heigl as a catering queen still smarting from being dumped by - lord have mercy on our black souls - Jon Bon Jovi.

But there's tension too. The celebrated glitter ball that descends rather unimpressively in New York on the stroke of midnight is stuck...and unless Hilary Swank's "Vice President of the Times Square Alliance" (yes it's a real job) can shift it then she's going to get a monstering from her boss...man-boy Matthew Broderick.

The standard of dialogue in this cynically soap-sudded celebrity parade wouldn't have got pass the script editors from Emmerdale and you can only speculate why the likes of Heigl, Hector Elizondo and, of course, De Niro ever got involved.

Perhaps their New Year Resolution could be to never appear in a Garry Marshall film again.

Tim Evans