The Note

The storyline had so much potential. This could have been a blockbuster movie but in the end, your left feeling it was made for TV and was on a tight production schedule. I teared up a couple times but way too often I was left disappointed by the character development or dialogue. Many of the situations were not believable or lacked the gravity of the moment. Many elements just happened for the sake of continuity but seemed forced and kept me from being drawn into the movie. So many instances that were highly emotional and the actors were not reflecting a convincible or honest level of emotion. Good but not great. I can't recommend it.

As a highly emotional person with absolutely no life, I'm a sucker for holiday movies of the type Hallmark usually shows around Christmas-time each year. Between Thanksgiving and the New Year, if a movie uplifts personal spirit, promotes feelings or thoughts of closeness with family, or otherwise has a happy ending, chances are I'll cry and I'll like it. Not so with Hallmark's latest effort: "The Note". I thought the script was very weak and the story itself just wasn't believable. The movie is about a Newspaper columnist who finds a note in a plastic bag following an airline crash. Assuming the note was written by a passenger on the flight, the lead character, Peyton Magruder sets out to to find the note's intended recipient - it's clear the note was written by a father to his child. With little else to go on, Magruder -played by Genie Francis - takes us on an unbelievable, unrealistic and ultimately unrewarding journey. Blame the script, mostly. I hadn't seen Genie Francis in quite some time and I was really pleased to see how she had changed since I'd seen her last (long long ago). I think I like her and I'd like to see her in something else; she has an interesting and expressive face. It's a good face. Even Ted McGinley who has unfortunately been type cast as the henpecked neighbor from Married With Children was fine. The rest of the cast was awful! The storyline was dreadful! I was tempted to rate this movie one star but I relented because I thought Genie Francis brought it up "a couple of notches" as Emeril might say. While it's a blessing that Hallmark isn't making any more of the dreadful "meet the Santas", their latest fare including this movie and another recent one in which a child sets out to find a husband for his mom (I'm glad I don't remember the name of it), make you wonder if maybe Hallmark's best efforts aren't behind them.

A good-feel of a Christmastime movie. Took me back to when it was ok to put heart-warming messages in films. And the fact that it dealt with a newspaper reporter was a big win for me. Genie Francis played her role with graciousness. Yeah-maybe it was a tad far-fetched that such a miracle like the one she had could really happen. But I like to be won over with happy endings in this era of divisive thinking on a large scale. The parts of the preacher and the songwriter were great, and the bad -guy TV reporter was believably smarmy. People constantly being on cell phones did not dominate this film (yay for 2007!). I am glad I found it on Amazon Prime for a trip back to a less toxic time in our country.

The start is a bit slow but don't give up on it, once it gets rolling it delivers. Genie Francis is good. I would disagree that this is poorly written. I thought Francis and McGinley's parts were well acted. For what it is, basically a Christmas movie, I'm not sure what more the viewer would expect?

I don't know whether it is the poor sound quality, the flat acting, or the predictable dialogue, but as soon as I tuned in on Amazon Prime I knew it was a Hallmark movie and that did it for me. Why can't they rise above those obvious cheesy elements and aim a little higher?