Five Gold Rings

I must confess that over the years my wife and I have watched more Hallmark movies than we can count. Most of them are Christmas movies followed by mystery movies. The storyline of this one is a bit different and overall, pretty good. The cast isn't picked from the same pool of actors as they usually are. That said the male lead actor sounded like Spock - his voice was very monotone, and he had very little facial expression. The Santa had a few too many "Ho Ho Ho's". And of course it wouldn't be a Hallmark movie without the typical, ridiculous "deal breaker" which usually happens about 15 minutes before the ending.

6.3 stars.

I think the leads are good actors, however they don't gel. She is standoffish and he's like a lovesick puppy throughout the narrative. But she doesn't seem to notice that he's really in love with her, and we see that he has been his whole life. This lack of empathy and wherewithal on her part exposes flaws that are unbecoming of a lead character.

So as the story goes, she comes home for the holidays and is sent on a treasure hunt by her grandmother, who recently passed away. Her mother owns a retail antique store of sorts. She wants her daughter to take over the store, but she is too career oriented as an aspiring painter to take over the family business.

The male lead is an old friend of hers, seems they dated a while way back in their youth. He is now running his family's private investigator firm.

The two of them are sent on this treasure hunt. He uses his connections and she her knowledge of antiques to find the owners of five gold rings.

It would have been really good, but something was missing. I think the treasure hunt was almost pointless and there are too many coincidences. These two factors cause an imbalance that is difficult to maintain. It sort of fell flat for me. I needed a more quality romance to make up the difference, but it was absent.

This is one of the occasional "hunt' movies they do for these Christmas movies. A recently deceased grandmother had a habit of finding and returning lost personal treasures before Christmas each year, and leaves five ring shaped keepsakes for her granddaughter to continue the tradition.

The stories of finding the owners and returning the rings are NOT compelling. None have any tension or real mystery involved, and are rather boring.

Holland Roden's voice is annoyingly scratchy for most of her lines, which I typically assign to nervous delivery. They should have been dubbed over in post, because she sounds terrible.

Nolan Funk is okay, but does nothing to liven up his role. His expression and delivery is continaully bland.

The romance seems to have been limited to one slip where he caught her on a sidewalk.

There is overacting for some of the secondary roles. The rival antiques dealer is supposed to be annoying, but her scenery chewing for her couple of scenes makes it moreso.

Then there was the grandmother, in two scenes at the beginning of the movie. She was so over the top sickly sweet annoying I told my wife I hoped this was one of the stories where they skip ahead and the little girl at the beginning has grown up.

Indeed that's where the story went, and I REALLY hoped the grandmother was dead. This is the first time in more than a decade of watching Hallmark Christmas films I found myself glad that a character died. Glad, relieved, and joyful.

Finally, the "relationship crisis" at the end was possibly the most stupid I've ever seen in one of these movies. Utterly unbelievable the woman would have acted that way.

Like I said, it's no tragedy if you completely skip this one.

I watched this for Holland Roden, who was so good in Time to Come Home a couple years back. She has an endearing quality about her.

Here she plays Audrey, an artist of some note who returns home after her grandmother passes, only to be sent on a quest to return 5 rings her grandmother found beachcombing.

To assist her in her task she enlists the aid of Finn, a private investigator, played by Nolan Gerard Funk.

I was about 30 minutes in when it occurred to me Funk reminded me of a smart-ass, murderous kid in one of the first episodes of Castle. Checked his bio and sure enough, it was him.

He has a lot of credits for a guy who acts like Spock.

One thing that stood out to me in this movie was the almost complete lack of familiar faces among the supporting cast. I guess there's been an exodus to another channel.

Along the way snowmen are built, office supplies are turned into Christmas decorations and art is created. People are appropriately thankful when their baubles are returned.

Nothing out of the ordinary for a Hallmark movie, but still pretty forgettable.

Five.

The storyline involves yet another quest that has to be solved. An artist, Aubrey Moss, (Holland Roden)comes home for Christmas and her mother tells her that her deceased grandmother's will left Aubrey five gold rings and five mysteries that must be solved before Christmas morning. The grandmother also left instructions for Aubrey to team up with Private Investigator, Finn O'Sullivan (Nolan Gerard Funk). I like that the plot is a little bit different, but like most Hallmark movies still predictable. The movie does sort of drag in the middle, but the stories surrounding each ring are interesting. I like Holland Roden and hope she appears in more Hallmark movies. She brings an upbeat and inquisitive nature to her character. Some reviewers have complained about Noland Funk's Spock like personality, but I find him to be in the Ryan Paevey acting style, more of the unemotional types, which did fit his Private Investigator character. The two leads did have good chemistry together. Overall, its not a ground breaking movie, but it's a pleasant diversion that's watchable.