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Keywords

Holiday Crashers, Hallmark movies, character chemistry, plot analysis, movie review, holiday films, legal themes, romantic comedy, film ratings, movie recommendations

Summary

In this episode, Nick and Leslie review the Hallmark movie 'Holiday Crashers,' discussing its charming elements, character dynamics, and plot intricacies. They highlight the chemistry between the female leads, the film's legal themes, and the overall execution of the storyline. The conversation culminates in their ratings and recommendations for viewers.

Nick And Leslie (00:23.57)
You are welcome. I wrote that. Yes, Leslie did an amazing job with that song. Thank you so much. Well, hello. Welcome back to our next review, is Holiday Crashers. And it is adorable. All right. Let's go play that trailer before we go ahead and chat about the movie.

Nick And Leslie (01:18.048)
So that was the trailer for Holiday Crashers. Overall, Leslie, how'd you feel about that one? It was adorable. There's some things that obviously we have to question legality-wise, as well as so far this is the best one. I think it's much better than the... towards the date before Christmas. far the best one out of two. I'm still amazed. don't think... Ichabod's having a moment.

I don't think it's going to be my favorite, but it could be a top 10.

So my biggest thing is that the chemistry between the two female leads, Bree and Tony, is so much better than Tony and Justin, the guy. doesn't love two single gals, mid-30s, being best friends, living their best life, being roommates, also working together, and they've been friends since what, first grade? Something like that. They had good chemistry.

comedy that was in with it really played off and it was you know like a true female relationship. I really liked how

I mean, yes, what you said, I forgot what I was gonna say. I mean, like compared to the last movie where it's like, you can visualize the script in your head and these actors aren't doing much other than delivering the lines, barely believably. This, I don't believe that the actors, actresses who played Bree and Tony wrote the script. Probably not. But I'm saying like, it felt like their characters believed what they were saying.

Nick And Leslie (03:05.574)
I guess that's the basics of Yeah, and the overall cast, they had good chemistry. Although I feel like one of them was, they're not, you know, top tier. They're great Hallmark actors, okay, and actresses. One of them, I really do believe was hired for his smoldering smile. But... yeah, the Indian guy. He was a little bit of a cheesy actor in a way, but he still brought everything together. Because...

Well, guess, okay, yeah, again, spoilers. What occurred at the end where his reveal was unexpected. I didn't think any of that. ended up being like the owner of the company. So I kind of called that early on. You did? Well, it's like, okay, never in a Hallmark movie has a woman fallen in love with a poor guy. you said that. That's right. Cause I was like, well, they're both like.

They look like they're job hoppers. Okay, so the plot. Just living life. We're getting way out of it. The plot. yes. Brie and Tony, they're besties, they're roommates, and they don't really have any plans for Christmas. Their real names are Sabrina and Antonia. Yeah. But they go by Brie and Tony. Yeah, that's cute. And other names as well. So they work in a greeting card shop, and they have the shred pile.

But they print invitations, so they're getting all these holiday invitations for holiday parties. then they always print extras and those go in the shred pile in case anything got messed up during the process. And then Bree's sassy little self decides that, you know what, we're going to take these invitations and crash for all these parties. Adorable setup. Same thing as Wedding Crashers, kind of. And Bree is basically playing a female Vince Vaughn. Honestly, I truly can't remember the entire movie specifics.

And so then of course they start running, well, Tony runs into this handsome guy named Justin. While they're delivering invitations to this like party hall. Yeah, yeah. And then she then runs into him at a couple different parties and he's like, hey, weren't you? And she's like, no, that's short for this or whatever. Because every time they go to a party, they introduce themselves as different names. It's so much fun. you see them go to different holiday parties, Christmas, Hanukkah.

Nick And Leslie (05:24.122)
And then you start hearing, a British one. They're at like a pub and you hear them just come up with these creative background stories. One of them's in finance, a finance analyst and the other one's a doula. Yeah. And it's just really funny how they're quickly coming up with some of these things. in crash test dummy manufacturing. work in crash test dummy manufacturing. I mean, the writers were, it was adorable. I need to stop using the word adorable. As well as the

blinking now. The costumes, the clothes. my gosh. Yes. Their outfits were adorable. Whomever was doing hair for this hallmark on point until the very end at the wedding. Everything else was very on point. The suave hair with the men as well as like the women, it was beautiful and not so overly like starched. It had so much movement. I was in. Well, if we are talking about hair and men, we got to talk about Justin.

He does not look like a Hallmark movie lead. He also doesn't look like someone who, was that a law firm he worked in? No. No, he Harrison Investments, acquisitions investments, but they never said what their acquisition was. They're trying to acquire a car company. that's right, Sky Motors. It was probably the most non-detailed profession in any, all you have to know is he wears a suit.

But he's the bad boy in the office because he has long hair and doesn't shave. And there's a very pregnant woman in the beginning, just full stomach out. And we're like, okay, there's a reason we're supposed to know this woman's pregnant. Yeah, there will be a pregnancy in the movie because they're not going to have someone be fake pregnant in a Hallmark movie. Okay. There were also this really good costume. I sorry, that's the opposite of what I meant to say. What I meant to say was they wouldn't hire a pregnant woman to be an actress in a movie and not be part of the plot. That's what I meant.

But there's also costume design that could have gone with it. Anyway, so yeah, I thought Justin looked weird. He also seemed very short, but on lifts. You know what I mean? No, I did not get that. He looked very sick at the end of the movie. Like he was on, I don't know if he had COVID, an infection, something, but he looked quite pale. He was not so... I mean, like he had small features. He looked petite, but with big hair. And I felt like...

Nick And Leslie (07:53.29)
feel like standing next to each other, Tony would have been taller than him. But they like tried to do camera angles and gave him lifts. kind of see what you're saying, but I mean, I guess I wasn't really so watching the height. I mean, we were also more involved, more interested in Bri and her romance with the valet. Yeah. And so on a side note, I just started following the Hallmark channel, Instagram, and I looked at some people's comments after this.

And they said the actor's name and they're like, my gosh, seeing him with long hair, like, wow. And this is his last name, Monet. I can't remember. But I'm like, then it got me thinking. We don't research on this. We don't research on these. And we also don't watch other Hallmark things as well. like throughout the year? Throughout the year. We it's a rare thing. Like I know we watched the Valentine's Day one, but I'm like, do these, do you think the Hallmark actors and actresses like?

their goal is to be part of the Christmas series or like be one of the Christmas actors. Like not everyone gets to be one of those Hallmark Christmas. am so curious on like the pay structure. Like is all this stuff done through the guilds or not? Maybe they have their own Hallmark guilds. Is it maybe it's kind of like the olden days of Hollywood where like actors would be signed up to like a 10 picture deal. So they're like contracted workers. Well, like I've heard, you know, I've heard.

I also like to I also like to imagine that even before anything goes into production They know the date of the movie like the date it's gonna come out So like anything closer to Christmas gets more and more progressively more and more budget probably this movie seemed way more expensive than the last one Well, like I heard they basically hire the actors for X amount of days To get in and they just like whip out all the movies that they're in at that time. Okay, I can see that

Anyway, one of the characters, Tony, her father is an attorney and he apparently is, you know, an accident attorney and does goofy cheesy commercials. You know, not just like they're in AI body like superhero.

Nick And Leslie (10:13.594)
and that person's attorney's head is on the body. But it's like, he does these cute little skits where like they're in a hospital and he's dressed up like Santa on a bed and there's elves around and then they're singing like a little jingle like, if you fall in, I can't right now. Sorry. But it's cute and cheesy. And Tony was in law school, graduated, apparently had did everything except

for pass the bar or actually take the bar exam. So in terms of a definition of what a lawyer and attorney is, she is a lawyer because she's done everything except for take the bar and pass. So she's not an attorney, but she is a lawyer. I don't know if Hallmark doesn't realize these things, but she could still practice law with consultation, couldn't do pro bono stuff.

but she could have a client, as long as there's a client relationship, she could still provide consultation. and so the reason why this comes up is because she gets, Tony and Bri get invited to, Justin's company weekend retreat up in the mountains of Vermont. Fucking gorgeous. Gorgeous. but, Justin thinks Tony is a lawyer.

this is plot talk, he thinks Tony's a lawyer and Tony's like, no, I can't tell him the truth that I never actually passed the bar. And then Bree's like, don't worry about it. And she's like, but no, this is highly illegal. And that's why Leslie's bringing up the fact that she is technically a lawyer, just not an attorney. So this whole plot of the movie doesn't make sense if the writers had done any research. Right.

So the point of what I was also trying to make is that she did intern with her dad and her dad has been trying to have her actually take the bar to become what they're calling a lawyer, but it's an attorney. So then she could be in practice with her family, but she or with her father and have the be part of the family business. So, but she is scared and doesn't want to. And it turns out she just had a panic attack because she didn't want to be like her father doing cheesy commercials.

Nick And Leslie (12:33.952)
Like, wow, you did all of that. You just don't want to be part of cheesy commercials. Something else is happening, but you know, it's a hallmark. We're, just going to accept that. And something while she is providing or she's bringing lunch to her dad, she is, she walks in on him on a conversation with some other attorney and they're talking about sky motors having.

Skyline Motors. Skyline Motors having bad seat belts, ineffective seat belts. But they're trying to build a case for it and I don't think they have a class action lawsuit, but they have not filed for it yet. So that's what they're, you know, they're building evidence to have that case. So then they're trying to find the right person to show that Skyline Motors has evidence that they're aware of this defective seat belts and that their cars are killing people, something like that.

That's what the daughter hears and the dad brings up. So they have lunch. He calls her pumpkin so much. It was kind of a little bit too much for me. I don't know why. And then I didn't really like the guy who played the dad. Like the the energy he gave he gives off is like the guy who's trying to host Thanksgiving dinner and you like calm down, dude. It's six p.m. Yeah. he's all and he's only in like

four scenes but like his energy is so robust and takes over. community theater. Yeah, so appreciate our local arts. So now back to the party that they were at and she was, Tony was talking to, what's his name again, Justin? Yes. Was talking to Justin. has long hair. And her old female or an old friend that she went to college with.

So they were about to introduce themselves incorrectly as a fake story whenever this person actually recognized them and was like, my gosh, you were the top of the class in our law school. And this happens to be that very pregnant person that Justin was working with. And so all of a sudden she goes into labor, but I'm sorry, right before that, they're talking about how they were acquisitioning and going to buy.

Nick And Leslie (14:52.864)
Skyline Motors. Well, Tony speaks up. It was like, Whoa, whoa, haven't you heard about their defective seat belts? And he's like, what, how do you know this? This is something, you know, this lawsuit's gonna happen. They're gonna have to pay millions or billions and you're gonna have to do that. And then all of a sudden the woman goes into labor. And then so apparently this weekend was a trip that was coming up as a conference in Vermont and they would be talking about this acquisition. And so the pregnant woman

really forcefully told Tony that she needed to go and bring her friend and they would figure out Skyline Motors. so that's whenever. And then there's this awkward exchange too where it summarizing Breeze like I don't want to go because I want to flirt with this car valet for the whole weekend. And then he's like, car valet is coming with us. Car valet is coming with us. And I'm like,

Maybe they own it? didn't think he would be the owner. Yeah, it was very convoluted that the guy who was parking cars is actually like a millionaire. anyway, yeah. So let's see. So I thought it was cute that they had dinner that they have their little Swiss themed dinners together. I loved that. and Tony as roommates twice in the

movie they have this like Swiss themed dinner where they do fondue in their coffee table. apparently it's a weekly thing of how Brie puts together themed dinners for the two didn't even put together that that's how she becomes an event planner when you're later at the end. was like she's very I'm like okay we're getting to this and then she ends it. So real quick all their meet cues were, cutes were what it's called, were very cute. Especially the one where where Tony

was at the party and then Justin walks up to her and he has two champagne glasses in his hand and he goes to hand her one or offer her one and she goes, how can I trust it? And so he hands the two back to the waiter and picks up two more and it was cute. I thought it was nice that there was like the softest of date rape references in a Hallmark movie. Yes, because as females, we can't just make everyone comfortable. We have to make sure that

Nick And Leslie (17:17.066)
we are taking care of ourselves first. That's always a learning lesson. It's small moments like that that make me appreciate the little bit of extra effort in writing. boy didn't write that? Yeah. My mom would have been like, take the drink. So let's see, my note says she was rude to Dan. yeah, Tony yells at her dad about how embarrassing those commercials are. Terrible love dialogue.

There's this scene that like right before the woman goes into labor, she's having like a legal conversation with Tony and it's like, with jurors procterous and you could bifrect the destination of the presentation screens. thought they did a decent job. It was funny when you cut like, okay, they're trying to put in legal jargon to like spice Justin look confused and be impressed that she knows these words. Right. And that...

Tony was, you know, top of her class and you even years later can still do well. So I like that they called out where this took place and it like, okay, so if a Hallmark movie calls out the location, it's usually a fake small town and being part of the small town is part of the plot. This case and with the one before, it's just like generic city. And I liked that they did call out that they were in Connecticut. That kind of. But they flew. Yeah. And she's

from Connecticut. they flew to Vermont. They flew to Vermont. So Connecticut to Vermont. No comment on if it was a private plane or anything. Well, when they said that, wasn't she missed the plane or was late for the plane or is quiet on the plane on the way back? that's right. Something about that. I don't, I don't know. I want to work for this non-descript acquisition company. And there's that assistant the entire time who was all,

not who definitely was like reading into. Yeah, he's researching. Yeah, them not being who they really were. So the whole big deal is like this whole weekend, she's having a wonderful time with him. But they haven't been talking business or lawyer advice stuff and said they've just been flirting, of course, in Vermont. Her dad gives away.

Nick And Leslie (19:28.988)
information from the class action lawsuit that he's trying to file. The was highly illegal. Because, I guess, yeah, you were an intern back in like her sophomore year. No, her like sophomore year of college. And I was like, my goodness. And this one was in her mid thirties. And so he's like, I guess I can share this information with you. But so like she spends the whole weekend trying to bring up the courage to tell him that she's not a lawyer.

And of course he ends up finding out because the assistant researches her and so then she feels bad and he's like, you lied to me. Tears running down his face. But it's like, it's so silly that she couldn't find one moment the whole weekend, even beforehand to be like, nobody calls anyone on the phone in any of these things. Just be like, by the way, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know why that's not that difficult to tell somebody. Anyways, it's not like, I'm the one who murdered your mom.

It's, I'm not a lawyer. One of those is easier to say than the other.

Vinny's a terrible actor. Vinny is the one, the valet who Brie keeps flirting with. He's a horrible actor, but he has a beautiful smile. Beautiful smile. And for some reason, the last scene of the movie is a Bollywood dance number. And he did such a good job. He did great. So I think a good job. He is definitely a better dancer than Brie, who he was dancing with. I feel like his resume is like actor, smiler.

Sorry, no. Dancer, smiler, actor third. Do you think, what was the perfect couple or the perfect stranger than Nicole Kidman movie that we watched and they had the French actress and the other ballet. I'm like, is this them trying to expand? He had no accent, but I don't know, maybe. I don't know if, I think he was really a, I don't know. Okay, I'm sorry. He might've been some celebrity in India, but that's probably a step down in your career.

Nick And Leslie (21:29.034)
to go to a Hallmark movie if you're famous in India versus like an HBO drama. yeah, I guess. Anyways, we got a double smoocher in this movie. Both of the girls got their smooches. That's nice. I thought it was funny that she said, got, I didn't mean to lie to you. I just got so caught up in the blah, blah, blah. What? Yeah, I don't know. I think you need to tell a little bit more. I got to write more of my notes, I guess, instead of just.

quote so caught up in she got so caught up in the lie that she didn't have a chance to tell the truth. Is that the line? I think so. Yeah, there you go. And that dramatic. my God. So we were stoned at this point of the movie. When she does go to meet with him after he's figured out the truth, they have later. No, This is before the year. bad. Pause.

So they're having, she's like, I'm sorry I lied to you and he's like, you put my whole company at risk. And she's like, by the way, here's some papers. And then she like goes to leave and she's about to leave the conference room and she turns around and has a whole second monologue with him. And I was like, why did they need to split that into two monologues with her almost leaving halfway through? 20 steps. And then stood by the door for a solid...

12 seconds? Just staring. Just quietly. If I was him, I'd be like, do I need to call security to get you to leave? And then she turns around and says, but I so caught up in the lie. But one thing was still true. How I feel about you. It was interesting. I don't know what happened to the last fifth of the movie. Like the hair went flat. Yeah. Justin looked sick to me. I think it was like reshoots. They don't even probably do reshoot.

But also it's like... had an ending, they had a change. I know when I have the marijuana, time takes longer. So probably wasn't a full 12 seconds. It was probably just like a half second. But I'm like, why is she still by the door? It was a very long scene. Yeah. Like a long Christmas Eve day of family Olympics. So for my numbers, writing, I give this a five out of 10. OK.

Nick And Leslie (23:45.562)
Acting 6 out of 10 just because the chemistry between Brie and Tony is fantastic. were very cute. Directing 5. It is a perfectly unoffensive directing. I mean, I feel like Hallmark buys their lenses in bulk because they all have the exact same type of bokeh in the background. yeah, you mentioned that. Yeah, that was funny. So yeah, I think this was an above average, slightly above average film in general.

For Hallmark, this is like top third. Yeah, I do think it's worth, know, catch it while it's streaming on it, but I do think you can, well, I mean streaming on their channels section, but I do think it is worth you going and actually looking and watching it. Yeah, on the Peacock app. On the Peacock app, or if you are paying for the Hallmark app, or Friendly, wherever you get your Hallmark channel. All right, well,

Tomorrow is, no, today is another movie we get to And there are some days, I don't know if it's three or four days, where they're double features. Yes, that's exciting.

Nick And Leslie (24:52.608)
I guess that's it until next episode Cheers Cheers. wait put our cups together. Make a heart For those who are just listening our mugs make a heart shape when they're put together Maybe the lights hit network. Okay Merry Christmas Merry Christmas