Coup de foudre sur les pistes

Busy widower dad Ty Decker (Dean Cain) has brought her daughter Anna (Lizzie Boys) to train with world famous champion skier Maddy Morrison. Kat Miller (Kristy Swanson) is a former teammate of Maddy who failed at the Olympic trials. Kat is now a local instructor on the bunny hills and working at her father's shop. Their small resort is under pressure from the big rival corporate resort.

This is a fine Hallmark movie. It's really only missing a Christmas theme and they would have checked the whole list. I mostly wanted to see this for Laura Bertram. Cain and Swanson have the pedigree as former stars of sorts. They have a functional chemistry. There is also the rival girl and the rival resort. It's a low level rivalry. It's all a bit low level which is fine for this type of movie. It's the bunny slope of movies and that's fine.

Sorry, but I got to the point where Dean Cain was coming down the slopes, acting like a total idiot, and that's when I turned it off. I could tell right at that moment that this was not a good Hallmark movie. I've seen hundred of them btw and for the most part, I loved them. Not this one.

First, Dean Cain and Kristy Swanson were unrecognizable based on movies I've seen them do just a few years ago, especially Kristy, her face looks like someone else's, not artificial but I didn't know she was in the movie until I read it here. Cain must have been under orders to smile, no matter what. Overall, not much happens and it is quickly forgotten. I like all the actors, so I assume it was just dumb material they had to deal with.

Hallmark has come up with a wonderful new formula for romance movies. There is no ex boyfriend or "jerk" boyfriend to deal with, and There is no villain. There are two people who meet, develop a friendship, and slowly begin to have feelings for each other. It was perfect.

The only flaw in the movie was Dean Caine being such a klutz at the beginning. That was probably intended for humor but it failed to be amusing, and was detrimental to the story. All the acting was superb and made each character believable. Outdoor scenes were beautiful and had real snow.

I have over 380 Hallmark type romance movies in my collection and this one is in the top 10. I have watched this movie 5 times. My rating 9.5

If you enjoy movies set on the slopes, then this movie is for you. Not a sappy romance, the emphasis is on training young daughter to have confidence in her abilities. This movie has a couple of my favourites, great skiing sequences + fireworks at the end.