By Geno McGahee
I hate when I watch a Christmas movie and there is no snow on the ground, but this is what you get when the films are based in California. So, immediately, I didn’t get that holiday feel from the Hallmark movie “A ROSE FOR CHRISTMAS.” If I got a rose for Christmas, I’d be pissed, unless I got other things like a case of wine or some scratch tickets. I guess if the person getting me the rose really was showing me love, I’d be OK with it, now that I’m thinking about it.
Cliff (Marc Bendavid) is a business man that is dispatched to California to oversee a Christmas float that is being produced. Big Al (Michael Kopsa) was initially going to be the guy behind the creation of the float but he had some heart trouble. He keeps referring to his nickname “Big Al.” He contends that they call him “Big Al” because he takes on big projects. Usually when a guy goes by the name “big” anything, it’s a dick reference. Shame on you Hallmark.
Since Big Al is dead in the water, his daughter, Andy (Rachel Boston), is taking over the assignment and you can see where this film is going immediately, but this is a Hallmark holiday film. They don’t specialize in twists and surprises. They are very straight forward in their delivery. Two people meet, they don’t like each other, they begin to like each other and they become a couple. If it’s not broken, you don’t fix it, and Hallmark found some magic.
Andy and Cliff meet and it’s rocky, but they immediately give each other nicknames. Cliff is called “Bulldozer” and Andy is called “Chaos.” Why so many nicknames in this movie? I would like a movie where the focus is nicknames.
There is no meeting of the mind as Andy and Cliff approach the creation of the float. They find some dude at a diner and he knew all about fixing shit and you knew this because he had a beard and wore a flannel shirt. He would later sport a denim shirt. Who the fuck ever thought a denim shirt was a good idea? Who said I want to rip off my pants and make a shirt out of it?
Along with the beard/flannel guy, there are some students of Andy that show up and some others that see the need to help make this float a reality. There is also Cliff’s asshole boss, Ellsworth (Daryl Shuttleworth), who has a hard on for this float and the budget. He is up Cliff’s ass the whole time.
Romance starts to kick in between Cliff and Andy, as expected, and they find common ground as they create this float. Both of them had the class not to mention the stupid denim shirt the dude was wearing and focused on making a huge bear float where the bear apparently killed a young child. I guess that screams Christmas to some.
As the duo gets closer, Andy tells Cliff that she doesn’t display her paintings because her mom dropped dead and showing her work hasn’t felt right. Cliff does what he can to impress her, but he fucks up when he enters her work into a local gallery. I knew she was going to be pissed off when he brought it up with a smile. He definitely assumed he’d get some by doing this, but he got blue balls instead and she was done with him at that point, but Big Al stepped in to give advice. Andy must have dated a lot of shit heads for Big Al to push so hard to get his daughter paired up with Cliff.
As expected, and this is not a spoiler I don’t believe, but Cliff and Andy have some minor conflict but end up clearing that shit up and hooking up. I was pretty disappointed that Cliff didn’t tell off his boss when he strolled his ass down and was a total prick. Your name is bulldozer! Plow that guy out. That didn’t sound right.
Everything comes together, the float works and there is a new couple born. Overall, this is a watchable Hallmark entry, even though it’s in neutral the whole film. I wonder why the writer didn’t think about doing something to put it into another gear. Having Ellsworth come onto Andy would have been a good direction and then Bulldozer could have plowed him out.
A ROSE FOR CHRISTMAS is watchable and the cast was solid, but it’s in cruise control the whole film and you could easily guess how it would end, but it could have been worse.
