Box office The film opened on March 11, 1994, with its widest release in 861 theaters. "They did me like the MTV guy. And they shortchanged what the movie was all about," he said. Leary made fun of himself in a humorous article written for a 1995 issue of
Playboy where he pretends to interview
Pope John Paul II. Leary asks the Pope if he has seen
The Ref, and the Pope responds that he was told it was very vulgar, as evident by its unpopularity.
Critical reception On
Metacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 59 out of 100 based on 27 critics' reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews."
Caryn James of
The New York Times called it "a grown-up film that delights in undermining Christmas cliches." The
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan said "its comic venom is refreshing for as long as it lasts".
Jeff Shannon of
The Seattle Times said "the Australian Davis - for my money the finest actress around, bar none - is simply uncanny in her command of East Coast gentility combined with razor-sharp timing and comedic expression". Of Leary, James wrote, "Here he has subtly wiped the abrasiveness away from his [stand-up] style without making Gus seem mushy. For the first time he displays his appeal and potential as an actor instead of a comic with a sneering persona".
Rolling Stones
Peter Travers praised the performances of Spacey and Davis, saying "They are combustibly funny, finding nuance even in nonsense. The script is crass; the actors never."
Glenn Kenny of
Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of "A−", writing
The Ref features "some of the sharpest dialogue heard in a Hollywood flick since the heyday of
Hecht and
MacArthur" and that "this nasty romp delivers so many honest laughs, you may end up watching it twice in the same night to make sure you weren't hallucinating". Negative reviews opined that the film's biting humor goes too far and that the movie "can't sustain its defiantly misanthropic tone".
Owen Gleiberman, also of
Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a "C−" rating and wrote, "
The Ref is crushingly blunt-witted and monotonous in its celebration of domestic sadism." In his review for
The Washington Post,
Hal Hinson criticized Leary's performance: "A stand-up comic trying to translate his impatient, hipster editorializing to the big screen, he doesn't have the modulation of a trained actor, only one speed (fast) and one mode of attack (loud)." The film was among 500 nominated for
AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list.
Entertainment Weekly ranked the film at No. 51 in its list "61 Best Movies You've Never Seen." In 2016, Jason Bailey wrote of the film for
Flavorwire: "It was, if anything, a film ahead of its time; its cynical attitude towards the holidays predates
Bad Santa by nearly a decade (and there are numerous other echoes of that film in this one), and its expert pivots between comedy and drama are more early 21st century than late 20th." Eric Walkuski of
JoBlo called it "a Christmas movie for people who don't like Christmas movies, if you will". == Year-end lists ==