The Santa Squad

It's a Lifetime movie, so my score is relative (we aren't using The Godfather scale here). The first 3/4 of the movie was pretty decent, the writing wasn't horrible, all actors were actually quite good. It's a cheesy Christmas video with zero budget, but the show was making the most of what they had. That is until the turn. All these movies follow the same general formula; two people, one of who is usually in a bad relationship, find each other, but before the soulmates can be together, some contrived plot device causes one to mistakenly reject the other. In the end, the truth is revealed, and true love wins the day. Usually, it's a conniving ex that causes all the trouble, but here, it's quite possibly the dumbest reason in all of Christmas romance TV history. I won't "spoil" it, but either the original writer, who was fairly competent to this point, went completely off the rails, or the script was hacked and butchered by a person who has never set foot in a kitchen, let alone baked a cookie. And who then decided that the main characters suffered temporary brain damage and completely lost their short term memory. I was half expecting the lead to pull some Polaroids out of her pocket so she could remember what happened two minutes prior.... Anyway, had it not been for that horrendous bit of script, this show might have ranked as one of the better low budget Lifetime efforts. As it is, I'm going with a very painful, 6 out of 10.

This movie is not original per se, there have been other hallmark movies that are similar, but it was still a good idea.

I was expecting a lot from this movie, having Jayne Eastwood and Aaron Ashmore in it, but it failed to deliver, it is entertaining, but it lacks... finesse?

The idea, as I said is not original, but tries to take a different avenue, that being said, the writing goes from mediocre to very bad, and the acting is sub-par, Jayne, Aaron and Rebecca do not manage to pull the movie up

Everyone else overacts, or is just too bad at acting, I know the girls are young, but there have been plenty of kids in Hallmark or other productions that are very good actors so age is not really an excuse.

The movie really sets an expectation that it fails to deliver, it is good to watch if there is nothing else but it is not going to be even a the most basic of classics, let alone a shining star.

Rebecca Dalton shines as Allie, a good-natured teacher laid off due to budget cuts and ended up employed by a wealthy family to decorate their home for Christmas. While there was the obvious potential for the story to go full-on Hallmark after they introduced Allie to Gordon, the overworked single dad (played by the awesome Aaron Ashmore) who neglected his two daughters, there wasn't enough screen time between the two to flesh out their employer-employee relationship, much less anything beyond. Gordon's two daughters, Allie's best friend Tony, Gordon's butler Daniel plus the old couple at the community centre left very little time for any kind of budding Christmas romance.

While the movie adds nothing new to the genre, it was at least warm from start to finish.

The one thing that really bugged me though about this movie was how bad the soundtrack was. While I get that most of these movies don't get enough budget for proper soundtracks, this one sounded cheap and hollow and clashed more than a few times with the pacing and editing, and ruined many pivotal scenes.

I hate to say this but had this movie been a Hallmark production, it would've easily gotten at least 7 stars from me.

The actors were all wonderful in their own lane but together their chemistry didn't work well which made their acting terrible. It's a christmas movie that does make you feel a little bit warm, but the warmth doesn't succeed as it contains the same story for a lot of movies.

I thought this was pretty good, sort of a Sound of Music without the music. I have to admit, when I look at Rebecca Dalton, I think, "Wow!" She's really gorgeous, but she also did a nice job in this movie. I was a little bit thrown by both of the leads being the same race and sexual preference. You don't see that a lot anymore (sarc). It's a slow starter, but it gets better and in the end, it's yet another heart-warming Lifetime Christmas movie. Give it a watch...