A Christmas Mystery

This story is convoluted and implausible. The acting is appallingly bad- especially the lead actress, who has some kind of weird accent that's explained away by her having been sent to school in England. She confuses petulant rudeness with hard nosed interviewing and is utterly clueless for a supposedly brilliant investigative journalist. The writers clearly know nothing about newspapers, law enforcement, the law or logic because the story is lacking in credibility and clunky dialogue.

The lead male is slightly better at acting, but the attempts to channel Sherlock Holmes observational brilliance is cringe worthy and utterly implausible.

The older guy they hunt has a most irritating speech impediment - probably caused by dentures that don't fit well.

The dog is cute, but the writers are so lazy they have a cocker spaniel (hair, not fur) causing someone to have an allergic reaction that would only happen in real life if the person had buried his face into the dog's body. I know this because I am allergic to fur dogs and sneeze around them, but my own cocker spaniel and other hair dogs (the ones that need to go to the groomer frequently) do not bothered at all.

Lazy writing, clunky acting, poor direction.

Where did Murray the dog go ?? Best part of the movie . He had a small bag of product placement dog food and no water dish . Poor Murray .He was adorable 🐾🐾🐾🐾 the rest of the movie ...meh

I am most of the time able to find some positive things to say about a film but regarding this "mystery" the only thing i can think of, and then i were forced to think both hard and long, were and is the great Christmas decorations in houses, shops, boats and on people ( the great knitted Christmas sweaters......in L.A ). The story is blend, colorless and flat. When it comes to the acting it is totally one dimensional, absolutely zero depth in the characters. And that actually makes me sad when the actors personality actually shines thru so much and the seem like very nice people, so i can imagine the set must have been just a delight and a wonderful time for all. To bad that the director did not have the skill to use that dynamic. It was like looking at the nicest of people, trying the best they possibly could with a script made for a middle school nativity play and directions given a prison chain gang.

Someone gave a review that they didn't know where the dog disappeared to. Evidently, they didn't watch to the end of the movie. I love this movie it show heart, compassion, and not your usual holiday movie. The only reason I give this an 8 was because it wasn't like a Martin Scorsese movie or a huge masterpiece. However, it is truly enjoyable with just the right amount of each component. There was a few discrepancies but they weren't really too obvious.

On the positive side, I'll say this is a different kind of story for a "Christmas" romance movie. It's actually a mix of romance and mystery with criminal implications.

The acting is poor. Esmé Bianco is totally flat. Ryan Bittle tries to hard. Their chemistry is forced, so not really any. Much of the dialogue is bland.

The story does some cliché things and some stupid things. Mystery phone calls by the partner. All the scenes of someone hiding in shadows and following the heroes. Tough guy in prison who overacts badly. A romance that develops out of nothing, except maybe bonding over the shared danger. Oh, and the cute anagram.

The whole chase seems a little unnecessary. The bad guy would have been better off leaving everything as is.

Where did the dog go? Simple. The writers didn't need him after he caused the clerk to sneeze at unfortunate times.

Did anyone not guess who Jack is?

The only tie to Christmas is some Christmas cards.