3 December 2016. This new Christmas holiday family movie presents a nice breakthrough in family themed movies while presenting it in less than stellar manner. A chimney rescue doesn't have nearly the same credibility as perhaps Backdraft (1991). A helpful movie point is that the fire crew seen in the movie is a rescue crew similar to a paramedic team rather than a crew to actually fight fires. They actually get to have a large fire truck so some reason. I guess the producer couldn't get an Emergency television series EMT truck. The movie sort of starts by dropping the audience into of the movie at a third of the way through the movie script which leaves the audience a bit lacking in being able to identify with the characters immediately. While most the movie is pretty much standard fare, how the movie transitions after the two-thirds of the way through presents a rather novel and enlightening change in how all the characters eventually relate to each other. This enjoyable and satisfying, fun movie has the sort of idealistic snobbery of The Cutting Edge (1992) along with developing the relational themes that were begun in 3 Holiday Tails (A Golden Christmas 2)(2011).

It's the Christmas time, the television channels are filled with the Christmas contents. There are plenty of Christmas themed films, so it's hard to choose one, particularly the good one. Because they are first time airing, so there's no data about which one's good and which isn't. I randomly picked this one, but I have already seen half a dozen of titles in the current season. Every year, it's impossible to avoid them, so I go for it. But almost all of them are similar with slightly different to each other. That's what I expected in this as well.

So this film was focused on a gift shop man with a young daughter who is going through a divorce is looking to take the next step with his new girlfriend who is a firefighter. When his ex wanted him to pose as they are back together, just to increase the sales of her newly published book, it begins to hurt his girlfriend. Besides, all this complication, his daughter is the most affected. How everything will be solved once for all is brings the end to the tale.

Actually, this is not a bad film along those I have seen in the last couple of weeks. It was a simple story, the characters as well, but neatly expanded plot which is obviously predictable. The only thing I did not like was the lead actor, the remaining all were good. I'm not doubting his performance, which was actually fine, but he did not fit in with the others, especially for my eyes. So I won't expect similar distraction from you. The little girl Sadie, looked like some kind of related to Jeff Daniels, but I don't know. There's nothing big in the film and don't expect one. It is an enjoyable, silly, simple Christmas film with the family members.

6/10

This is supposed to be a com/rom (yes I reversed it) based on exaggeration. From the first scene, there is nothing about this that is believable. The solution to Tom's problems were pretty obvious but he lets himself be cowed. And the last couple of scenes are even more ridiculous again because it's not in any way believable and such an inexplicable reversal by nearly everyone.

But this kind of comedy can't be measured the same as a typical romance movie. So is it funny? I didn't laugh. Up until the last 10-15 minutes of screen time it is a constant downer. Everything that happens is negative. The grandfather is emotionally abusive of his granddaughter, Sadie, and daughter, Mary, and constantly threatens the ex-husband, Tom. The ex-wife, Mary, makes constant threats also, and in both cases these threats would hurt Sadie most which is why they have power over the dad. Is emotional child abuse funny? Sadie finally says "I wish I could divorce all of you" and it was long overdue.

The writers apparently think that abuse of political power is funny also because that's a running threat against Tom and Jenny. There's barely any romance in the movie until the very end.

I can't judge the acting in a mess like this, but I didn't see anything good. There's no chance to build chemistry between the leads either. The only remotely positive thing in the movie was the relationship between Sadie and Jenny.

Note by way of explanation - I recently started to become sensitive to reviews that use words like "the worst ever" and such. I believe if you are going to say anything close to that, you need to back it up and if you quit the movie after 15 minutes, anything you say goes with a grain of salt. Also, it's often pointed out that reviews that are extreme on either end are often by people with ulterior motives and you can tell something by number of reviews by that reviewer. I have over 1400 ratings and nearly 800 reviews. Many are Christmas movies and/or Rom/Coms. Check my stats.