Watched: 12/01/2024
Format: Hallmark
Viewing: First
Director: John Putch
When Hallmark announced its slate of 2024 Christmas movies, it was a bit of an eyebrow raiser that they had this one on the docket. Holiday Touchdown: A Chief's Love Story (2024) seemed like it was just begging for trouble in some ways.
Usually, Hallmark avoids discussing real-world things, even naming specific teams, if sports are mentioned at all. Of course, we figured the movie would echo the Taylor Swift/ Jason Kelce romance - something even I know about, and I don't follow the NFL, the Chiefs or Taylor Swift.* So, to base an entire movie around the fact the Kansas City Chiefs, one of America's most discussed professional football teams has a player in a famous, tabloidy romance, seemed kind of wacky.
But, heads up - the movie does not acknowledge, reference or spoof the celebrity couple. In fact, the movie is in no way about either a musician or a player at all, not even an assistant coach.
Stuart, who is KC based, has informed me that Hallmark is headquartered in Kansas City, which I didn't know - so the pieces for why Hallmark went all in on a movie that would feature Andy Reid in a cameo kind of snapped into place. Loving your football team is, by far, not the worst reason to make a movie. (if someone made a movie about the University of Texas Longhorns, of course I'd watch)
The plot is, not surprisingly, whisper thin. Instead, it exists as one part pro-Chiefs propaganda, one part family comedy about a football loving family, and one part absolute nonsense Christmas Hallmark film.
The idea is that football is what unites us and gives us common ground and something to discuss, which is true.** Sports are not inherently bad, no matter how many wedgies you got in high school.
Anyhoo, the movie is a soft sell. So soft, in fact, that the story is about a missing hat. Like, someone said "so what is the plot of this movie, now that the Chiefs agreed to it?" and Dumb Dave in the corner said "I like hats" and they made that movie, because it doesn't matter. You know the guy and girl will fall in love, and Kansas City Chiefs will be omnipresent as a force for good. Why not make the problem a hat?
The story: a guy comes to Kansas City to be the Director of Fan Engagement for the Chiefs, and -looking for the biggest fans in all of Kansas City, meets a girl. The girl is part of a family that had seats together since the 1960's, their kids fell in love and got married, and the grand-daughter - yes, three generations here - is our love interest.
The families own a BBQ place, because this is Kansas City, and a Chiefs merch store in the suburb of Independence.
Protagonist loses a magic hat that they believe if they wear it on Christmas Day, the Chiefs will win And Christmas is coming.
Spoiler: Guys... they find the hat, and the Director of Engagement figures out a fun, cheap give-away scheme to tie to the now public story about a missing hat that literally only one person cares about (and that person is not me).
What's insane is that the only conflict in the movie is that the girl believes that if her new guy doesn't believe the hat is magic, then he only believes in coincidence. If no hat on Christmas = Chiefs lose! Our lady-hero, stripped of her hat, goes into a full-on existential spiral. Read: She breaks up with a guy because he refuses to acknowledge the power of witchcraft.
Usually the chaos and meaningless of the cosmos does not enter into Hallmark movies, but here we are.
Like many, many, many Hallmark movies, in order to brew up a tad of conflict, and to make sure we know our lead male is non-threatening and willing to forgive and be harmless husband material, our female lead is the absolute worst in order to brew up conflict. Despite everyone, including her family, telling her "it's just a hat" when the supposed magical hat disappears, she keeps insisting it's magic. Including, with no one asking her to, she tells 75,000 faithful Chiefs fans, in person, she lost the hat so they'll maybe lose, making her sound like a lunatic.
What *should* be the conflict is that the guy is clearly trying to bag our girl and makes her family the Fans of the Year or whatever, and they get lots of perks for that. So he basically uses the resources of the Chiefs to land this girl.
And, yes, of course this movie resolves with the cast badly green-screened onto the field at Arrowhead Stadium before kick-off for a Christmas Day game.
So, it's time to talk about the cast. And, look, I don't want to be unkind, and picking on Hallmark's stable of actors just feels like bullying, but I don't get why they've gone all in on Hunter King - our female lead here (and Hallmark loves her). She... both looks and sounds like a high schooler, non-stop. It does her no favors, especially when they pair her with a dude who is clearly about 40. And they seem resolute in having no chemistry.
But this movie clearly had a budget for talent in a way most of these movies do not. We have actual, name actors as supporting parts, there they are on screen, with @#$%-all to do.
Why is the dad played by Diedrich Bader? I don't care, but he is. Good for him. get that paycheck. The mom is played by Megyn Price,*** who you absolutely have seen elsewhere before, particularly in sitcoms where she was the wife who was out of the league of the lead actor in the 00's. Character actor Richard Riehle is one Grandpa who loves his "special" egg nog too much, and working-as-hell actor Christine Ebersol is Grandma. But we save the meaty part for Ed Begley Jr., who seems like someone is reading him his lines in his ear piece and he's just repeating what they say, somewhat in a way that maybe Grandpa should have his keys taken away.
Most perplexing is that Texan and Today-host, Jenna Bush Hager**** shows up as herself at the end, alongside a badly spliced in Andy Reid. Hallmark stalwart Wes Brown is there for one scene as a bartender - which happens a curious amount in these movies. And several Chiefs players and the mayor of KC show up, too. There was one cameo I know I was supposed to recognize the guy, and I did not. But I did figure out the sassy lady at the BBQ was Donna Kelce, mother of the Kelce brothers.
In the end, I think everyone just wanted to get free Chiefs merch, so why not be in the movie? There are worse reasons. The Chiefs are a fun team.
Is the movie dumb? Incredibly. If you're a Chiefs fan, this is probably a delight. If you're not, it's fun to imagine being a Chiefs fan.
My one real complaint was that the movie drags soccer, and - Kansas City has both a men and women's pro team, and... hey, be cool, football. You have your space. Let soccer do its thing.
*I'll cut you off right here, and say she's a good musician. Just not someone I follow.
** I have a text chain with guys I graduated from college with that lights up every University of Texas game, and in-between during the season - and is used for chatter the rest of the year. I've been talking to these electronic-music-loving-nerds for 30 years, but now we talk football. Sports! And, in fact, Jamie and I kind of bonded over the 1995 Cowboys.
***I may also be at the age where the moms in these things seem like a better idea than the leads
****yes, of the George and Laura Bush family, and 1999 Austin's favorite punchline
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