Ed's Review Dot Com

Hallmark Channel, The, Kaufman/Plager Productions,

Julie Benz, Michael Shanks, Kirsten Robek, Toby Levins, Farryn VanHumbeck, Chilton Crane, Steve Makaj, Jay Brazeau, Daryl Shuttleworth

A war widow Amanda (Julie Benz) is still struggling with the loss of her husband two years ago when she meets an injured soldier Master Sergeant Jim Mullins (Michael Shanks) returning from Afghanistan. The town has cut the funding for the museum where Amanda works, The Pinewood Heritage Museum and Community Center, and it looks like it’s going to have to close when Amanda comes up with the idea of holding a fundraising event on December 23rd to raise the money to keep the museum open. Jim is anxious to help, but he notes that Amanda is grieving the loss of her husband while he, himself, is struggling with guilt that he is home and his men are still in Afghanistan. He wants to go back to the field, but cannot under doctors orders. The two help each other get to the root of the issues they have buried inside and help each other learn to live their lives again.

This 2017 premier movie is a war film wrapped around Christmas time, but I did find it very sentimental which made it a little bit unrealistic. The chemistry between the two go from zero to sixty in 5 seconds, and makes it hard to accept. It’s a interesting story, but not the most intriguing of the films I have seen this year. Overly sweet, I found myself getting bored pretty quickly. There are no real conflicts or really hard decisions and things are a bit easy. I’m sure this will resonate with those familiar with life in the service, but for civilians like me, things were a little bit too simplistic and resolved too quickly. I found this to be one of the weaker entries for this year, and an interesting choice to start out my Christmas reviews for this year!

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Front Street Pictures,

Anne Heche, Dylan Neal, Farryn VanHumbeck, Sean Michael Kyer, Samantha Ferris, Michael Teigen, Darien Provost, Julia Benson

Terry (Dylan Neal) is a widower raising a teen age daughter in a new town where he’s working on developing a new hotel. Their life has been hard because he is constantly moving from one project to another, so he’s hoping to get a big promotion and move to a permanent home in California. Carol (Anne Heche) is a single Mom whose husband left her a couple years ago. She’s struggling to raise her son, but has thrown herself into the PTA and involvement in the annual Christmas Pageant at school. The two accidentally bump into each other and in a series of mishaps, things just get worse and worse. They truly are opposite on everything until they start to realize that maybe they really need each other more than they realized.

This is a touching Christmas tale featuring an overworked Dad who wants to do better, but his job keeps pulling him away, and a woman who has learned to throw herself into helping everyone else to hide her pain. Anne Heche is a talented actress, but something seemed a little bit off in this role as it wasn’t a perfect fit for her. Dylan Neal did a very good job in his role, and I think he was a better fit. The story is very well told, and though the setting is not utterly beautiful and Christmassy as many of these films are, this one is a bit more realistically dark and damp December-like. It fits the story. Other really good performances include the school Principal who tries to keep Carol and Terry from killing each other, and Carol’s best friend who gives her a lot of advice and support for what she needs. But the two kids who play Carol and Terry’s kids are really good as well. There is a lot of heartwarming lessons and morals here to learn from in the way we have to live in now, and learn to appreciate what you have and what is really important. So many times we get sidetracked on future goals and miss the important things happening around us. We also have to learn to take chances sometimes and not hide from our problems. This was a good film and Hallmark did a good job with this one.

Here is the Hallmark web page for this film.

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Annuit Coeptis Entertainment II,

Matthew Settle, Rustin Gresiuk, Josie Bissett, Farryn VanHumbeck, Russell Porter, Kendra Anderson, Adrien Dorval, Chris Gauthier, Ecstasia Sanders, Manny Jacinto, Burkely Duffield, Danny Wattley, Anja Savcic, Yee Jee Tso, Lucia Walters,

This new film is not yet available on DVD, but this is a link to the Amazon.com page for the novel by Jimmy Wayne.

An abused wife packs her kids in the car and moves to another city. Things are tough, but they are far better off without him. Their lives become entangled with another troubled family. There is a Christmas tree filled with paper angels created by families with children who will have no Christmas without the generosity of a stranger. But when one stranger is unable to fulfill his obligation to a boy, magic happens.

This is an uplifting Christmas film based on Jimmy Wayne, country songwriter and singer’s, song and story of the same name. It’s a story of troubles and helping each other. The story is tied together around a promise to a boy via a Paper Angel on the Salvation Army Paper Angel tree who is waiting for a special Christmas gift but receives much more. The story is not too complex, but it does have a lot of heart. It is an interesting story of people overcoming obstacles to make a better life for themselves, and it has a pretty good payoff in the end. I certainly don’t think this was the best of the new crop of Holiday films, but it was pretty enjoyable and certainly worth watching.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog