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Keywords
Christmas Charade, Hallmark, movie review, romance, comedy, holiday films, character dynamics, family themes, humor, plot summary
Summary
In this lively conversation, Nick and Leslie review the Hallmark movie 'The Christmas Charade,' discussing its plot, character dynamics, and the themes of love and family. They share their thoughts on the film's humor, budget constraints, and the chemistry between the lead characters, ultimately giving their ratings and recommendations for viewers.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:00.174)
So we are coming to you live from the Halloween on Central Market in St. Petersburg, Florida sunny St. Petersburg, Florida. I am Mariner. yeah And Voimler here. Yes, sorry Voimler. We are dressed as the Star Trek Lord X characters
Yes. So I'm vending at this market today, selling my tarot decks and games and stuff. And Leslie, my wonderful wife, is helping me, supporting me today. Well, you know, I also get a market for real estate as I'm a real estate agent. Yep. Anyone needs a real estate agent in the Tampa Bay area or any referrals out of state or international. Here we are. I'm with Real 2.1 Group Sunshine.
So because we had to do this today and we had like four hours to set up and only took us like 90 minutes We figured might as well bring the camera and do some recording while we're here rather than having to do it at home when we're done with everything and exhausted because we know You demand to hear our review. Yes, you do demand it for sure All right, here we go. I got my notes. So Today we're gonna be discussing the hallmark original
which was released yesterday the 26th of October. It is the Christmas Charade. Or the Christmas Charade. Either way, let's play that trailer.
Alright Leslie, what did you think of the Christmas charade? It was fantastic. I highly recommend watching it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had me a couple of times of, what? Yes. Yes, it was great. It definitely felt, I'm going say definitely a lot, always do. It felt like they were really stretching the budget that they had. In a good way.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (01:57.568)
I love when they shoot for the stars and then just kind of like end up landing in the ocean because that's fun. Right. So the... I'll do the plot this time. So this centers around a woman named Whitney who is a librarian. Her parents are... They run a security company and she is constantly afraid of everything. So she never dates, never does anything exciting.
She has a friend. She's skeptical of online dating. Yes. And because she's worried that someone's lying or they're gonna kidnap her or something. Very heavy on stats. Yes. So her friend who she works with convinces her to go on a blind date with her cousin's friend or her friend's cousin or her husband's cousin, something like that.
She goes to the blind date to the restaurant and she ends up sitting at the table with the wrong person. It's a blind date mix up. Yeah. Blind date mix up. The person she sits at the table with is an undercover FBI agent trying to find a someone who's been stealing expensive jewelry and artifacts and stuff. And so he thinks it is this particular person. So he is going undercover to meet with this person and their wife as they organize this gala. So he's
trying to get like an invite to this gallery. The mistletoe ball. Yeah. And he was expecting a different undercover FBI agent to pose as his girlfriend in this scene. But instead this girl sits down right as that couple shows up. makes up. Yes. And everyone's wearing a dark green sweater. Yes. Yeah. So that is how they were going to meet each other. So convoluted as hell. They end up now having to pretend that they are dating so that
they can continue on with this charade. She also in this meeting somehow gets a job as an event planner for the, not the Jingle Ball, the Mistletoe Ball. The Mistletoe Ball. Yep. So now this is like the eighth, this is like the sixth out of six movies that involve an event planner as a profession so far. So, all right, so she's the event planner of this event.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (04:15.718)
And then he has to like trainer how to be an undercover agent Josh Dawson and he's like a rogue undercover FBI Yeah, he hates working with partners. Yeah, he only likes to be with himself and he's his undercover name is Johnny Johnny the woman who was supposed to be his fake girlfriend was Kelly agent Tanner so Meanwhile
while they're undercovering, trying to figure out how they can figure out who it is that's gonna steal this jewelry or swap it with a fake that has a tracker in it, they inadvertently run into Whitney's coworker. And Whitney's like, who's this? And the agent quickly, Agent Josh, undercover, quickly says, I'm her boyfriend. And the coworker's like, you have a boyfriend? Why didn't you go to that blind date? Is this why?
Anyway, so that news ends up going to her parents. So now she's like, well shit to keep this up. We have to have dinner with my parents. And he's all nervous because he's never met a girl's parents before and he's such a lonely family and he's such a lone wolf. Yeah. And of course, Charismas means nothing to him. And then, you know, they end up figuring out the whole heist with some adorable like hanging from rope scenes as they try to steal stuff and very low budget spy things. It is quite a delight.
Alright, so that is the plot of the Christmas charade. Let's see, I really liked Whitney's onesie as she, the movie starts off with her watching a spy movie. was a onesie? I thought it was just a long sleeve button up pajama. Well, whatever it is, it was adorable because she's eating cereal. her spy movie eating cereal in the morning. I thought Mistletoe Ball was adorable. This is once again a situation where someone is organizing a huge Christmas event.
days before it is supposed to go off. I like that the jewelry did have a little bit of a background to it. It was a German princess's necklace that was given to her by her American lover. Yes, and it's called the heart of Christmas. It's worth 10 million dollars. It's a necklace. Now, can I say whenever they showed that necklace, I wanted to put it in my mouth.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (06:39.374)
Have you ever had those strawberry candies that have the gel inside them? That's what those pieces look like. And I just want to pop them right in. Yes, same. Yeah. Wait, were they going to auction it at the event or were they just showing it off?
That's a good question because it was a fundraising for children's of the arts. So I guess it was just they were showing it. Yeah. Because it only comes out once a year. That was weird. But yeah. I love the wrong blind date thing. The chemistry between Josh and Whitney was great. Whitney was a wonderful actress. I was going to say her face was adorable. Adorable. it wasn't over. It was like good theatrical expressions. It was fantastic. But also like he brings it up.
You know being an agent you need to have a poker face and she doesn't have a poker face and the whole like montage of them this is the training or this film was full of montages I love it of the Especially the agent training. I love one of the things he had to teach her how to do to be a good spy is to text messages In her pocket without looking at the screen So that was fun her trying to message him He just gets gibberish and she's and he's sending her like elaborate sentences. I was really cute
So when she first has to pretend that she is the girlfriend, and that the undercover, that first date, the marks ask her what she does for a living and she cracks under pressure and says, ballroom dancer. Which was hilarious because it turns out she doesn't know how to dance, but I thought that was adorable. So when they...
come up with a plan to make a duplicate necklace with a tracker in it. They go to this jeweler and the jeweler's like, they show her a photo and she's like, yeah, I can make this. Give me a couple hours. Give me a couple of hours. Now I don't have the best of hands, but I don't have arthritis. I don't want to assume things, but like I would not be able to work that quickly on anything. Like you got to find the stones. Perfectly stones and the weight of it. Also, like no one wanted to talk about, I know no one's messing with it, but.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (08:50.574)
And you got to cast gold. Like this woman was like, she's like, meanwhile, I also sell ornaments in my little gift shop and didn't even want to question. I'm putting a tracker and she's like, yep, give it here. I'll have it done. There's no like oxy acetylene torches anywhere. There's no like giant rollers. There's no stampers. She just happens to have all the stones perfectly cut. Right. And they're lab crafted rhinestones, or whatever she calls it.
So let's see, Christmas is just another day, any other day for me. That was a quote from Josh. And of course that broke Whitney's little heart. I loved that he had to meet the parents. That was really cute. The dad was very overprotective. I thought it was, I've noticed that there's a Hallmark tradition that once the goal of the two main characters has been set, there's gonna be three instances of them failing to complete that goal.
before they finally are able to complete that goal. So like it's the same thing with the, what was the last movie we saw? Operation Nutcracker, where they kept having to run into that guy who had their suitcase going off of his planner. Every time they would show up, they would have just missed him and it was failure, failure, failure, and then it happened. Same thing here, where they keep trying to figure out.
when they can swap this out with the dupe failure failure failure. Yeah, they're to switch out the dupe, but there's so many dupe things happening and they're duped so many times. love it. And it could be an object that they're duped with if it's like, you know, the necklace or it could have been someone duped them with another distraction and they're running after the wrong person. And it was good. And then the parents duping her the entire time of her life. They were secret.
FBI agent sorry, I was hitting the table. Secret FBI agent back in the day and it was just adorable. She was emotional for no reason in my opinion. I guess they're like, this movie's getting long and the truth we need to have an emotional beat. I know we're getting hit a more so. Yeah. But it's just like how everyone, that's a big cute fluffy puppy. We get distracted by our dogs passing by anyway. So the parents end up accidentally getting
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (11:11.736)
kidnapped while the heist was going on and they were like stopping the person taking the original real $10 million necklace and so they were captured and then boom the time the FBI got them they opened the back door and boom there's the parents taking out the ones that were doing the kidnapping and it was adorable and that's when it came out about like yeah we met we were FBI agents and then yeah we
got pregnant with you and we decided to retire. And just get into home security. get into home security and it was cute. And the mom is such a good actress too. I enjoyed her a lot. She was fun. The dad was uncomfortable but I think that was the point of the character. Yeah. And so when he does, when Josh does have to pretend he's the boyfriend and meet the parents, they play charades of course. And there was a cute montage of them playing charades. And it's always weird watching people play charades with
when you don't hear the audio of people guessing because it's a montage. So we're just making silly faces. But they did a good job with the father, like making fun of him without even I didn't catch on. I was like, why is he not saying reindeer when they were playing short? He was just trying to get him to really act like a reindeer and get on all fours, know, humiliating a person. And we all laugh. The dad did do a good job at that. And unfortunately, it made me laugh. But they knew something was up with their relationship. Something seemed weird.
And so they had the name Johnny for her fake boyfriend. And so they called their connections, the parents who, again, the retired FBI agents called their old friends at the bureau and was like, hey, there's this guy dating blah, blah, blah. This is what's going on. They're like, can you see what's happening? And they're going to this ball and they're like, he's an undercover agent. They're just telling people about who's undercover agenting these days, agents. And so that's how they ended up buying tickets to the ball to.
like help the mountain suit was going on. I also want to shout out Whitney's. when after Whitney gets the job to be the event coordinator and they go to meet this couple again at their house to talk about the event, I want to shout out the outfit she was wearing. It had, it was a, like a deep red kind of canvas texture with like glittery threads sewn into it.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (13:29.166)
It a Chanel's suit material. Yes, it was beautiful. was beautiful. was. Meanwhile, the dress she wears for the mistletoe ball. Horrendous. Horrendous. That was too bright of a red that was going on. It washed her out. It was too thick of a material to... It just made her look extra boxy. Yeah, the was weird. is People can be boxy. That's perfectly fine. I just... It didn't...
She didn't walk in it well because it wasn't for her body. But she did manage to have a pretty convincing tango scene with Josh. That was cute. That was cute. I liked their dancing. magic there. All of a sudden someone's got a tango. She whispers in his ear.
And so back to when Whitney finds out that her parents used to be FBI agents, she has to have an emotional breakdown over it. And she says to them, need, she needs some space. And then the parents show up the next day and she's forgiven them. It was not even 12 hours. It was eight. I think they all went to bed and woke up Christmas day. Yeah. Again, Hallmark magic. People just coming back together. No problem. Just like Hallmark magic. Whitney and Joshua.
went down a rope, no gloves, bare handed down three stories. Off the museum. Off the museum, no issue. I'm like, what? Mind blown. I like too how when they were going down the rope, he was like holding it at like level with his shoulder rather than like hanging. Yes. Yeah. It's like, they're just, but you know, again.
But I mean, that looked more realistic than the CG snow that was floating all around them. worked with what they had and it was still cute. We did see the strings that they were attached to for safety. So we're so happy Hallmark was keeping them safe. But we're like, that's the string. OK. But then, they got down and made Josh look strong and as he was rappelling down in a way. Also, I liked how she was in like kitten heels. And then all of a sudden she was clearly running in flats as they were running in.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (15:36.716)
the throughout the museum, the dress was too long for her in flat. So she looked awkward running in the flats in the dress. The dress looked heavy for what it should have made. it just must have been heavy dressed to run in. Well, I think this is my favorite of the movie so far. It's it is going to be one of my top 10 most definitely. Yeah. I mean, that's what you say. That's exactly what you said about.
Holiday Crashers. I said top 10. Now I'm saying potentially top 5. I went 10 then 5. Okay. Did you like this more than Holiday Crashers?
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (16:16.812)
Yes, but...
It's like this one was a little bit cheesy comedy and cheesy slash comedy just because you've seen the strings and it had me hooked. Yes, I liked it better than Holiday Crashers. That took me a minute. Highly recommend everyone sees this. I thought this was great. Christmas charade. Yeah. Hopefully they go up from here. I'm excited about tonight's movie. yes. Yeah. Anyway, but.
I'm again just amazed all the things that they can come up with. So I think I'm giving this one for writing a seven. wow yeah yeah. six directing maybe four.
Yeah, yeah Yeah, seven six four Yeah, friendly reminder to what the prop prop masters all those people's to remind the actors and actresses cups have weight in them Yeah bags have weight cases of drinks Have weight. Yeah a bag has a weight to it. Yeah, so just remember if we're not gonna put weights in there even sand
Make them just, it's a little heavier. that to the drinking game. I don't think I had any other notes, did you? No. Why hostages? yeah, when they stole the hostages, they're like, we're gonna trace them down. They're headed towards Main Street. yeah, there's no- New York City has a Main Street? City does not have a Main Street, that we believe. Okay. let us know in the comments, please. Yes, does New York City have a Main Street? Does New York City have a Main Street?
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (17:54.19)
Alright, well thank you so much again for listening and you'll hear from us again in a day or two, I guess tomorrow for our next one. Unless we have crazy energy tonight and record it after. knows? Yeah. and stay tuned. There is going to be a special episode about the Thursday Hallmark Mystery Christmas. yes. there's a bunch of Hallmark Mystery movies. I don't think I have time to watch them. Leslie does.
So we're gonna have Leslie tell me the plot as I react. Yes. Or maybe I try and guess the plot based on the title. who knows? Got any suggestions? Leave it in the comments. Let us know. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Thank you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Halloween.
