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Keywords
Hallmark movies, The Finish Line, holiday cheer, movie review, character dynamics, sports themes, gender competition, Christmas movies
Summary
In this episode, Nick and Leslie review the Hallmark movie 'The Finish Line,' discussing its plot, character dynamics, and themes. They explore the relationships between characters, the humor in the writing, and the underlying themes of competition and gender in sports. The conversation culminates in their ratings and final thoughts on the movie's place in the holiday film lineup.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:00.206)
Nick and Leslie, Nick and Leslie talking holiday cheer. Hallmark movies, cozy nights, and a festive review today. Hey, grab a seat and a sweet treat, cozy up push play. Movie cheers, what you'll hear this Hallmark movie day. Welcome to episode 26. The Finish Line is the movie we reviewed. Full disclosure, we recorded
this three times. So some of our joy has left. Yeah, glad to be finished with this. But that's not to say the movie doesn't deserve it because the finish line was wonderful. let's play that. Yeah, let's play that trailer.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:51.438)
300 mile Christmas race around Finland. You've been working your entire career for this one team one dream. I hope you win. You ready for this? I'm ready for anything. The finish line only on Hallmark Channel.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (01:08.376)
So the finish line teaches us about some people named, that's the Christmas quest. We have Anya, Elise, Cole, Lavi, and Monte. Anya and Elise are best friends. They're from Alaska. Anya is a dog sled racer. Elise is her coach partner, business partner, something like that. You tell her she's not a coach, she's like her manager.
her manager. I don't think she's coaching her doing sledding. okay. Right? So.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (01:45.781)
Either way, they are now headed to Finland to complete, compete in a tournament up there. This is the tournament that Anya's father lost on his winning streak 30 years prior. So there's a lot of pressure on her doing well. While they're there, they meet Lavi, Anya's cousin. He is gonna be introducing them to the world of Finland and what it's like around there. He is a hilarious person.
He and Elise have wonderful chemistry together. Of course, they end up getting together at the end, spoilers. But there's a really good moment where he says, so how have you been enjoying Finland so far? And she's like, they must really love Christmas here. He says, yes, this is the home of Santa Claus. She said, I saw 12 Santas on the way here. And he's like, there's only one Santa, but he's very fast. That was a good joke. That banter.
Yeah, that's kind of the quality of writing we get in this movie, which is why I gave it a 7 out of 10. Sure, quick wit. Yes, it was very funny. And then, so Anya does her first qualifying race and ends up pushing her lead dog too hard and he gets injured and needs to sit out the rest of the tournament. So she's, she, sorry, Cupid. So Anya's like, well, I guess I have to drop out and comes to the rescue.
Cole, who is a former racer, now a reporter, and Anya hates reporters, but Cole's also very sexy. And he's like, well, I have a dog who I just keep with me when I travel on reporting assignments. Maybe this one can work as your lead. So they have this really nice scene of them trying to get the dogs acclimated to each other. And as a result, they get acclimated to each other too. Not just the dogs, but the couple.
and they developed some really sweet romance there. I like that this movie didn't have any misunderstandings as a plot point, did it? Some of these, some. Usually Hallmark movies has someone like walking in at the wrong time and seeing something and then misunderstanding the intent of that, but we don't get that. This was just like genuinely just like, we're gonna try to do a thing. We're gonna work to do the thing. We did the thing. Let's all cheer. And I think that's kind of fun. I like to call that the Bugs Life strategy.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (04:04.129)
Just I guess it's also pretty taken even further back. That's like seven San Marais Bud's life is a remake of seven San Marais, but anyways so Cole is a very handsome man. He is pretty charming he and Oni of course end up together I give them a six on the chemistry-o-meter, but what really gets me excited is the chemistry between Lavi and Elise They gave me a seven on the chemistry meter. They were great
Meanwhile, the villain of the story is Monty. He is the Sane Racer that beat Anya's father 30 years ago. He was the underdog. He was the underdog, yeah. And so I guess there was kind of one misunderstanding where he's presented as the villain of the story, but towards the end Anya does have a conversation with him and he kind of presents everything from his perspective and it makes Anya really the villain and she's like, wow, that's a good point.
And I'm like, well, he didn't need to play into being the villain. He was a dick. He complained about being victimized as being the villain, which I understand. He didn't need to play into it. Right. Like, he could have said nice things. She had the same mean things, and she didn't have to say things back. you know, the banter. She stated things back whenever he said something mean, such as, like, glad you could be, you know, the one woman in this race having to, you know, carry a man's legacy or an effigy.
And she was like, you know, thanks so much for supporting that womankind. Peter. There was also, he complained that the women racers had less weight to pull. Well, he didn't say women. He just said the lighter racers. Yeah, but it really only affected the two women competing. Well, I mean, I don't know what the twin brothers that were racing or whatever, they could have been lighter than Monte, so.
Everyone had to put weights on their sleigh to become the same amount of weight as the highest weight in person. Which, did we weigh sleighs? That's good question. Did we weigh them pre and post poop? I don't know, but also did we weigh the amount of rope versus the strength of the dogs? Anyway, so people complain about men and women in sports and change and...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (06:20.263)
It's always the men that want to change everything because they're concerned about losing. It's interesting too that this is a co-ed sport. I don't know if that's really the case. have no idea. I thought it was interesting in this movie that Elise was for it. So I'm giving this a writing a seven, writing a seven, acting a six, directing a four, again, chemistry meter six for Anya and coal seven for Elise and Lavi.
The directing I gave before because there is some horrendous green screen. It's fun though. It is fun and we get, know, due to safety, you know, she's not doing her own stunts on these sleighs or sleds. I'm not sure the proper term is so sorry everyone, but they, what was I just talking about? Green screen. Green screens. Yeah. And I'm like, I'd be wearing a helmet.
It goes so fast. I can say it was particularly funny when they do the Finnish ice plunge. That is some very awkward training screen. It was. know ice definitely doesn't look like that, especially if it's a cutout hole that's been cut out for the entire season on the ice. The saw scene was very nice to watch. I liked looking at Cole's thighs. Yeah. Yeah, they were very nice. Cole's thighs. So that was the finish line. It's
Probably my number two in the year. I don't know for sure yet till I run the numbers. Right. It's going to be in my top five so far. At least it's right now it's in my top five. But yeah, I think it's a worthy, what was the holiday marriage one? To have into holiday. Just above that. I liked it just above that too. That's probably my number three. It was, I think it's a must see. It was very cute. Very cute. I do kind of feel like they buried it in the middle of this weekend of six movies.
And they didn't even put a Christmas title on it. Well, that's true. Maybe they weren't too like optimistic on how well it would do. Yeah, I mean, maybe. But you know, throw a bunch of dogs in there, you'll have me crying. So it was a beautiful movie to watch for the genre. right. Well, see you all next week. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
