Quando l'amore sboccia a Natale

I think the thing about these movies that a lot of the negative reviewers miss is that they're for people who believe in God in general and, in this instance, Christmas in particular.

Don't like either of those? Then you're going to loathe this movie. It's a Hallmark movie so anyone wanting gritty realism and hard hitting drama is obviously looking in the wrong place from the get go. But, for those of us more open to just being entertained, these films - there's a whole series of them - are pretty good. Yes, they're completely sentimental and schmaltzy, and do have a liberal sprinkling of religious moments, but that's what the series is about. In this movie's defense if you can't have schmaltz, sentimentality and religion at Christmas when *can* you have it? Personally I just suspend my disbelief for the duration; turn my central heating off, put the real fire on, hunker down with a hot chocolate and cookies and let myself be swamped in Hallmark endings for a while. At a time when the real world seems to be imploding under a tidal wave of doomsday preppers, financial Armageddon and global unrest then this is a pleasant escape for a moment. Let's face it, the real world will still be there when the credits roll, so why not go AWOL for a mere 2 hours? I won't tell on you, promise.

watching this made-for-TV travesty was like watching paint dry; combined with commercials, this stinker stretched out for more than three hours - hours of my life that i will never get back... with pithy writing for one of the protagonists ("I got sheriffin' to do."), and seeing Colby Chandler slip up on a western accent and wearing multitudinous freshly starched color-coordinated outfits, one has to wonder what was going through the director's mind when putting this abortive snoozefest... even worse, there was no plot resolution to the 'bad guys,' who disappeared off the storyline and the screen with not one whit of a scene adieu... two thumbs down for one of the worst xmas TV movies of 2011 - even if it featured 94-year-old Ernest Borgnine in what could very well be his last professional act

This movie, although I am sure was made with good intentions, turned out to be a huge fail. With a great storyline.. and what could have been a wonderful cast, the acting, and direction turned out to be an epic failure. I find it hard to believe that the director was... satisfied with the portrayal or the characters. I found the Christian values worth while, and the "message" had a target of going directly to heart but, with the poor delivery, and acting.. the movie bored me to sleep. It was all I could do to force myself to stay awake. I always feel badly about writing a low review however, in this case... someone had too. I will not hold this movie against the past movies..

While I am a Catholic I am not into Christian movies even tho I watch them when I have the chance only for the cast members. And since LOVE'S CHRISTMAS JOURNEY has at least two actors I really like and it's available on Youtube, I knew that some day I would have seen it despite I haven't seen the previous chapters.

Ellie King and Aaron Davis are two young adults that go in a Western town for starting a new life with their children and Aaron finds a new job thanks to Mayor Wayne (Sean Astin) and during their time there they'll have to deal with some outlaws that hate Wayne because he arrested them when he was the Sheriff and also with preparations for Christmas.

I agree that while 2 hours and 46 minutes are too much for a TV movie and I would have appreciated if it was trimmed. But as it is, it's great entertainment and nothing more, nothing else. The performances by all the cast members were great, and I especially liked Astin and Ernest Borgnine's performances. And the ending too was great, with the Christmas party and all the lights.

Overall, a must see for fans of Christian movies and for everyone else, good entertainment that it's available on Youtube if you want to give it a try.

My wife somehow managed to get me to watch this unbelievably horrible film. Four hours of ridiculous scenery and props, terrible acting, awful dialog, and amateurish directing. Whatever is worse than "mailing it in," this is it. Where does one start? All the male characters are idiots. They do things that no self respecting man would do. The sheriff is the archetypal pansy. The family lives on a massive ranch outside of town -- with no livestock. We are to believe that the boy, raised in the wilderness, has never been taught about the deadly poisonous berries that grow locally, yet his aunt knows that a certain purple flower that happens to grow nearby is the antidote. At least 45 minutes of this monstrosity is characters exchanging goofy looks while smiling at each other. Tightly edited from four hours down to 90 minutes, this might have been watchable. Or not. I usually trust Hallmark to produce entertaining family fare. But this stinker was worse than water boarding. In fact, if the U.S. government were to take it to Guantanamo and show it to the prisoners, we'd know all of al Qaida's secrets after two showings. Easily the worst movie I have ever seen.