Made-for-TV movies are a dime a dozen, and made-for-TV movies that have to do with Christmas are a two dozen for a nickel. And made-for-TV movies that have to do with Christmas that debut on the USA Network are handed out free on street corners.

Still, there's usually watchable in that bland, inoffensive, commercial-break-every-seven-minutes sort of way. "Three Wise Guys," which premiered in December 2005 and now comes to DVD, fits that description. It's a comedy, and while it's not particularly funny (it will provide a few chuckles), it's not annoyingly un-funny, either. Not really a glowing endorsement, I know, but for a TV movie, that's par for the course.

It's set in sunny Las Vegas a few days before Christmas, with a casino owner named Murray Crown (Tom Arnold) bringing in three hitmen to deal with a personnel problem. The wise guys -- ladies' man Joey (Eddie McClintock), married-with-kids Vincent (Nick Turturro) and gloomy George (Judd Nelson) -- are the sort of mobsters you see in comedies, i.e., they never kill anyone and actually seem pretty nice.

They wind up tackling a side project for Murray: track down his mistress, Mary (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe), and bring her back to town. Seems she's pregnant with Murray's child but is trying to double-cross him with the Feds, too.

It's based loosely on an old story by Damon Runyon (of "Guys and Dolls" fame), and while the TV screenplay by Lloyd "Lucky" Gold doesn't isn't as colorful as Runyon's work, you can see the whimsy and charm that surely existed in the original.

There are, of course, goofy Christmas parallels, including a Nevada town called Nazareth and the pregnant woman being unable to find a hotel room. There's not a lot of actual Christmas content -- no peace on Earth messages, no mention of Jesus (except once as a swear word), no 'tis the season to be jolly stuff -- so I suppose silly things like having the three wise guys give Mary's baby gifts of gold, etc., will have to do.

The movie is good-natured and light on its feet, and there are certainly worse ways to spend a cold winter's night.


THE DVD

There are optional English and Spanish subtitles, but no alternate language tracks.

VIDEO: The non-anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer is decent, but not great. There's a lot more grain than you'd expect from a movie that's only a year old, and the sunny cinematography looks a little washed out, the colors all blending together dully. Not that it matters; it's a TV movie, for crying out loud.

AUDIO: Two options: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and Dolby Stereo Surround. Both are OK, though there's an awful lot of ambient sound in quite a few scenes. On the other hand, the film makes ample use of jazzy Christmas music, and it sounds great.

EXTRAS: None.


IN SUMMARY

So the movie's passable as entertainment, no question. It's certainly not worth buying -- I can't imagine it being very enjoyable on the second or third viewing -- but it's worth renting once, if there are no made-for-TV movies actually airing on TV that night.