The Worst Film Ever

Pretty Good

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Blistering performances.

Well, that was a first. A Hallmark movie that ends with Al Borland from Home Improvement extorting $1.3 Million from an obviously confused, emotionally unstable woman who had recently and unwillingly inherited a Christmas tree farm. In the Hallmark universe, Al (Mason in the movie) is supposed to realize he is a greedy scrooge for wiping out the life savings of multiple rural poor working class people (these people miraculously have $450K cash stashed away in coffee cans in unlocked cupboards that my three year old could easily find). Anyway, Evil Al does NOT find the meaning of Christmas and instead takes the box containing the $450K of cash. He is promised the rest of the $1.3M the next day. The poor woman who inherited the tree farm now has to pay back $1.3M on a property she owned basically for free a week earlier. See, her nasty boyfriend had her sign a three page contract for sale from Al without reading it, over lunch. And apparently this is totally legal and "final." Not even the weird 'I think he is the love interest' local real estate lawyer could find a way out of this. So, pretty boring movie full of every cheesy cliche in the book until Jules signs the contract without reading it, or having an appraisal done to know the true value, or even having legal representation. Then, she goes from being portrayed as this classy, successful, smart, motivated NYC business woman to being a complete and total idiot. It's like she is two characters, pre-contract and post-contract. The first character would never, under any circumstances, sign an unread contract for sale over lunch. And the fact that she allows herself to get extorted by Al in the end to pay him a cut just to have the tree farm back also goes totally against her character that is setup in the first half hour.The rest of the movie is filled with bad acting, weird characters that have income but no jobs, cans of cheese, plot holes, errors in geography (mountains by Chicago, really?), fixing up a broken down Christmas town in two weeks with two cans of paint, and on and on. We never get to see the actual "town" and there is no Mom, Dad, Sister, or best friend to experience the mess for the audience and ask Jules what on Hallmark earth is she thinking? The love interest has zero chemistry and is forced beyond all measure. But they have to put it in there because this is a Hallmark movie after all, right? I guess Uncle Frank's contribution to the $450K, a coffee can stuffed with $100 bills, can be considered back pay for rent, as he admitted to illegally living in the guest house on the property early in the movie. Know that there is a silver lining in the ending, maybe even a Christmas miracle. Al does not get off scott free for being a scrooge. The second he walks into a bank with $450K cash to deposit he will be arrested. He has no receipt, no contract for sale, nothing to prove to the IRS and FBI where he got that money, so yes my friends, the true ending of this movie is that Al goes to jail. Merry Christmas!

It is a Xmas movie, right? How the heck do they have an immoral, greedy real estate developer come out a huge winner? On top of that they put him (Mason) in a major scene with townspeople and it is all smiles. When they should have been running him out of town tarred and feathered.How Mason became a 'winner' is nonsensical. It calls for signing a million dollar+ contract with a 'stranger' and without reading it.Two weeks to renovate a run down Christmas Land and all we see is a single purchase of a few cans of paint. Voila, it is magically as great looking as in years gone by.Did you know that a coffee can,not even a large one, cannot hold hundreds of thousands of dollars? Finally, our 'hero' attorney can not come up with a single creative approach to help nail greedy, immoral Mason.

I love the 3 main characters in this movie; Jules the grand daughter heir to Christmas land (Nikki Deloach), Tucker (Luke Macfarlane) the good guy, and Mitchell the bad for you boyfriend. Nikki Deloach was in "A Dream of Christmas" this year- which was a much better movie (I hope she continues to do Christmas movies). I really enjoyed the first 30 minutes, liked the second 30 minutes but the final part of the movie really lagged. Richard Karn (Home Improvements Al) character just didn't work. I noticed they put well known actresses like Cynthia Gibbs and Maureen McCormick in such really small parts. I loved that they put Chonda Pierce in the movie and that worked well. Most of the reviews hated the ending of the story and I agree. I would recommend watching it though.

OK, I watch Christmas movies. I work from home and having movies randomly off and on behind me is fine. Most of the time I have sci fi or action etc. movies playing behind me. This movie...the acting was fine, the actors fine. But where on this planet or at least in the U.S. does one sell a property without an appraisal, a survey, a title/lien search and commitment, legal representation on either side or a realtor to go over the contract etc? And, WHO pays CASH to a man who had all ready lied? No receipt for the money, no legal, "hey thanks for paying me $450,000 in cash and the other money I shafted you for, receipt." So, it is sad enough that these movies hardly ever have people of color in them...ANY color other than white...and formulaic story lines, but get with a little legal reality. Geez!!! So annoying. OK, Christmas rant is over.