Deck the Walls

DNF

I tried to get through this, but it is just so bland and boring. Nothing sweet or charming to pull me in. The chemistry is lacking with all the characters.

Most of the time what makes these kind of films tolerable is the chemistry between the two leads and when there is no chemistry and the story is bad written and conceived it's a recipe for disaster.

Don't get me wrong I enjoy holiday cheese, but this is just not it. I honestly don't get why it was made or how it made it past the outline stage.

I liked the aunt character but even she couldn't make me finish watching it. Not my holiday jam.

The problem with "Deck the Walls" is the problem with most rom-coms, a lousy script. It starts out funny and Wes Brown is really good with light fun roles, but Ashley Greens's character got bogged down in the past and nostalgia. That ruined the whole light nature of the film.

A high school principal getting in effect a "Habitat for Humanity" home, just didn't work for me. It just didn't pass the smell test so, the movie got another black mark. Danny Pellegrino seemed an odd casting choice, don't know what the producers had in mind.

It could have been a much more interesting movie by adding more humor and less of the past and nostalgia.

I almost dnf'd this in the first 10 minutes, but I persisted and I can't say I am happy about that...with the exception of getting to see Carolyn Hennesy as Aunt Gigi. This film starts as a hot mess. The dialogue is awkward, the meeting between characters is awkward, there are lots of sad themes liking bullying, divorce, poverty, death, coping techniques, loss of family home to fire, etc. For me this added a lot of negatives to what should be a light Hallmark holiday film, add in that this had advertising imbedded in it for both HomeGoods and Nutella and it rapidly moved into a film I not only can't recommend, but don't want to watch. (Not that I have anything against either HomeGoods or Nutella, but we are already watching too many commercials on cable which we pay for.)

The best part of this film was Aunt Gigi, played by the lovely Carolyn Hennesy. I have loved her as the tough but lovable mob lawyer on GH, where she has set an example of a strong, loyal, independent woman for years. The other aspect that was enjoyable was the exterior of the fixer-upper home. I am sorry to say those two items don't push this over into the recommendation category for me.

It was such a terribly written movie, no plot whatsoever, all over the place, not sure how the script passed the producers, but it is childish and chaotic.

The two main leads were OK, and the actress that played the aunt is wonderful, also the TV reporter, but I just could not focus well on the story because the actor that plays the brother was so atrocious, he was lost and beyond bad in literally every scene, how did he even pass the audition, he is not even high school drama level good, he is just terrible. In most of the scenes he did not even know where to look or how to move within the scene, absolute amateur. Truly hope we will not be seeing him again in any of the Hallmark movies, this is obviously not a career for him.

I did like the costumes in the film and the set decor was nice as well.

I sat down to watch the 2024 Hallmark Christmas movie "Deck the Walls" as part of my 2024 December Christmas Movie Marathon. Sure, I had never heard about this movie prior to watching it, but I figured with it being a Hallmark movie, then it couldn't be all bad. Sure, it might be super sappy, as Hallmark movies tend to be, but I still opted to give director Jake Van Wagoner's 2024 movie a fair chance.

Yeah, I didn't really have the biggest of expectations to the movie, so I suppose that the writer Tracy Andreen and Danny Pellegrino had every opportunity to bedazzle and entertain me.

However, I found the narrative in the movie to be rather mundane. It wasn't a particularly entertaining movie. Sure, it was watchable, but the movie was just lacking that particular Christmas spark that many of these sappy movies usually have. It was a pretty generic storyline, truth be told, and not a particularly great one at that.

Of the entire cast ensemble I was only familiar with Wes Brown and Adam Johnson. While the acting performances in the movie were fairly good in general, I have to say that I just didn't particularly like leading actress Ashley Greene, as she lacked charisma and on-screen sparkle to make it a believable sappy Christmas movie.

While I did make it through the entire 84 minutes that the movie ran for, I was only mildly entertained. I can honestly say that I am not returning to watch this movie a second time. And if you enjoy sappy Christmas movies, let me just say that there are indeed far better and more enjoyable movies out there.

My rating of "Deck the Walls" lands on a three out of ten stars.