Love on the Right Course

I've just watched Ashley Newbrough and Marcus Rosner in Flipping for Christmas and was greatly disappointed. So, I was hesitant to watch this movie, but decided to give them another chance, especially when I saw this one was set in Budapest. I have to say this one did not disappoint. I loved the scenery and found the acting and chemistry to be genuine. Ashley and Marcus are great together in this movie, their characters are fun and caring. I loved the dynamic between Whitney (Newbrough) and her father as they remember her mother who has passed. I loved all the supporting cast of family and friends, they helped make this movie enjoyable, even the dog. I really enjoyed seeing Brittany Bristow playing a competitor pro golfer. I rated this down by one star as Steve Byer who plays Whitney's caddy plays his usual character that is only looking out for himself. But I suppose there had to be some drama in the movie. All in all this was quite an enjoyable movie to watch.

I found this movie to be quite boring.

To be fair, though, part of that could be because I'm not a golf enthusiast. To be honest, I only watched it to the end because I have grown to love the actor, Marcus Rosner, & I enjoy taking in the scenery when the movies are made on location in Europe. But, my biggest pet peeve is when the background music doesn't go along with the movie. When they don't meld together, it's distracting to me & takes away from my enjoyment of the story. I hope Hallmark doesn't continue to take on a trait I have found in Great American Family movies. Hallmark can do much better than this.

The story is fairly common. A sports star is burnt out and goes home to re-energize. Part of her burn out is she is still grieving the loss of her mother who was also her coach. She meets a golf pro working at her dad's club who brings back fun for the game. To add to that simple story, dad is considering selling his home and the club. There is a subplot around that. Another subplot is the appearance of the professional caddy she recently fired. Despite Andrew's good looks, supposedly the two never had any romantic involvement and there is no hint of any sexual orientation either way. Nevertheless, his arrival does make things more complicated.

The chemistry between Ashley Newbrough and Marcus Rosner is good but not sparkling. There are enough things going on in the story that Rosner and Newbrough are not together as much as they could have been. Overall the acting is good and dialogue is decent. We see some Hungarian scenery.

Hallmark lately seems to like mixing there regulars around, sometimes for cameos, sometimes for more. In this case Brittany Bristow appears as a rival competitor in the two golf tournaments shown. She gets a few lines at the end. Maybe because she wrote the story, this her first fictional movie on the small screen. Not bad, but no great highs or lows or surprises.

I enjoyed it, but my current rating may be over-generous. I like both Newbrough and Bristow and the story flows well. And it is the first non-Christmas movie I've seen in weeks.

Once again, Hallmark cast a lead "current or former pro athlete" with an actor who seemingly started learning the sport and its mechanics a week after the script arrived. Previous movies about baseball and hockey and football players, ice skaters, etc have been painful to watch ... and "Love On the Right Course" adds 'pro golfer' to the list. Enough!!

A simple and obvious casting tweak would have at least tripled my IMDB stars for this movie. Ashley Newbrough is lovely, but her golf swing wouldn't make a junior varsity team. Her scoopy pitch shots were cringe-worthy for a "pro". Marcus Rosner (a golf instructor here) had a passable full swing. Cameo cast member, co-writer, co-producer Brittany Bristow should have been the lead actress based on her golf swing alone, and her acting style and charm would have brought more sizzle to the script's inevitable lead romance.

Team Bristow (dad, mom and daughter) continued its string of overseas shooting locations, this time in Hungary. Many roles were filled with eastern European actors. It helped toggling on Closed Captions. Enough said about that.

Golfers will see that TaylorMade was an exclusive brand logo for clubs and bags. But the golfers' and gallery wore strikingly plain, logo-less clothing and headwear ... and the last time I saw that was in "Caddyshack".

While the story was okay and the lead actors delivered their usual respectable performances, I found the narrow depth of focus chosen for much of the movie to be simply too hard on my eyes to keep watching. We do not see the world with such short depth of focus, so prolonged exposure to that effect neither feels natural nor is easy to process. So many scenes were shot with only the actors in focus, that the audience is deinied extended views of lovely waterfront scenes, quaint village alleyways, and interesting interiors. One knows these appealing scenes are there, but they're repeatedly obscured by somebody's idea of what makes cinematic "art." Rather than focusing my attention on the characters & story, I found this video technique was such a distraction that it killed my interest in the movie.