I want you to listen and I want you to believe me when I say that this is the best Christmas movie Hallmark has ever released.
This is down to Beau Mirchoff, the male lead.
I can't say I was extremely familiar with Beau's oeuvre before seeing this. But I did look him up prior to watching, just to check how hot he was and whatnot. He was hot. I decided to watch.
Hallmark's men are usually average or just above average looking - attractive enough to entice the lonely midwestern housewives who watch these movies (us!) but not so hot that they're unattainable. That is not the case with Beau. Beau is unequivocally out of our league.
But wait for it. As if that wasn't enough, The Finnish Line contains the longest shirtless scene in any Hallmark Christmas movie (I know because I have watched all of them - don't worry about it).
And what a scene it is. What a chest.
It begins at 41:54 (you're welcome) when we catch Beau and the female lead - don't ask me anything about her, I didn't look at her once - standing by a carved round hole in a frozen lake.
Beau is wearing is brown-ish plaid robe, which he proceeds to peel off before climbing into the freezing water. We get a few good shots of his full body while this is happening (he's tall, broad-shouldered, athletic) and catch first glimpse of his giant furry chest. Then the girl also gets in or whatever and they stay there chatting for about a minute.
But then, when you thought this is over and are getting ready to go back and replay that undressing sequence to make sure it's seared into your mind's eye for a good year at least, Hallmark decides to take it to a new, unprecedented level.
At 42:48 we get...Beau in a sauna.
And there is nothing to obstruct his luscious milk jugs here. No robe, no freezing water, no fast edits, no plot. Just close up, lingering shots of his face and torso, cropped just above the waist, transforming his massive pecs into a central character of the movie, one whose story and pathos we're emphatically invested in, a character worthy of its own sequel.
The scene ends at 44:48 and the audience reaches out for a cigarette.
Will we get that sequel? A Christmas movie about Beau Mirchoff's furry pecs? If Hallmark has any sense, we will. That's a Christmas miracle worth believing in.
