Planes, Trains, and Christmas Trees

This movie begins with the common winter premise of being stranded. Isn't it great that Brett's relatives are so close by. The travelers consider planes and trains and rental cars, but don't make any serious effort for any of them until after spending days stranded. How many winter storms strand you completely for days in Ohio? Yes, this is all a weak setup to get Kayley and Brett to work together to produce, you guessed it, a Christmas festival. They do most of the usual things, but it does give them time together to develop a relationship. Even so, like so many Christmas movies, you have to wonder was there really enough between them to fall in love? Another common theme is where Kayley, the visitor, becomes the hero in making the festival a success, despite numerous obstacles including one of the most common - losing the venue.

The acting isn't awful. I find Kathryn Davis appealing when she plays a reasonable character. I was glad to see that although Kayley complained a lot about not being able to get to NYC, she still didn't throw any tantrums. The dialogue is OK.

Throughout the movie, Kayley has a boyfriend calling her from NYC. We learn absolutely nothing about him except that Kayley wasn't thrilled with him. Why? We never really learn.

In a holiday season with literally dozens of Christmas movies, 3/4ths of which are the same stuff, this movie is easily skipped simply because it is nothing special.

With a title that riffs the Steve Martin/John Candy comedy classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

This is anything but two people who have just met trying to get home for the holidays by any means.

Event planner Kayley (Kathryn Davis) and sports agent Brett (Olivier Renaud) are unable to fly home to New York for Christmas due to a snowstorm. The two team up to make their own way home.

Only to find themselves holed up in a small sleepy town of Redwood, Ohio. It just happens to be Brett's hometown that he left years ago.

The biggest problem with this movie is. It becomes inert once it ends up in Redwood. Brett tries to reconnect with his family and eventually Kayley falls for Brett.

Most viewers would had expected a mad dash to get somewhere and some scrapes. I'm not talking about driving up the wrong side of the road!

The actress playing Kayleigh over-acted so much it was cringe worthy. I often wonder if the stable of new actors used by the Hallmark studios are straight out of drama school - a) to give them experience and b) because they're cheap . As another has said Reel One Entertainment over does the musical background, and this is no exception.

The storyline is a staple for christmas output - leaving to get home / attend a meeting.... flights cancelled ...... meet a stranger ...... snowstorms ..... have to stay put... deadlines to meet and always by Christmas Eve. See, even I could put a suitable script together !!!

Often wondered why the Americans refer to "the holidays" (something we don't do in the UK) instead of Christmas.

Reel One Entertainment TV movies are notorious for the various technical issues, most notable are music and audio. This one takes the cake.

Remember notorious "Christmas Belle" TV movie? Remember how vast majority of us hated it for the constantly loud background music? Somebody at ROE TV tought it would be great idea to do it again, but this time would be different, right?

Act I is unwatchable because there is constantly obnoxious loud background music. Non-stop. I decided to watch till the end to see how deep rabbit hole. In Act II it was toned down a bit. "Just" ~75% of all time. Then again music was cranked up in Act III. It simply destroyed whole movie!

Olivier Renaud is fine TV actor. It is always a pleasure to watch Richard Waugh but he seemed a bit of exhausted. Writing was average but good enough for this type of movies. But you can't concentrate on anything because of loud music and it's especially annoying if you use good quality headphones.

Like so many other ROE TV movies in the last few years, it is almost always Hamilton or Kelowna pretending to be some US city or town, and this time it was Hamilton pretending to be real life Sulphur Springs, Ohio.

As with any other ROE TV movie, you can watch a trailer and see the whole movie compressed which I recommend to do to save yourself from the audio torture.

Predictable scripts, awful acting, irritating music throughout.

Both storyline and it's very title have been lazily copied and modified from the amazing, Planes Trains and Automobiles movie starring Steve Martin & the unforgettable John Candy.

Unfortunately, many writers of today's era are so badly talented with zero creativity. Directors appear satisfied just to meet targeted budgets & deliver on time without ensuring the casts can act.

In 2023, what is it with the Hallmark concepts of having endless stupid music & audio effects during the entirety of today's movies??

Rather than Paramount, Prime, Netflix etc. Producing endless nonsense, it's about time they learned from the success of talented box office hits from the past and understand how movie making in recent years have become boring, predictable and somewhat pathetic.

To conclude.... Planes, Trains and Christmas Trees is perhaps one of the worst Christmas movies of all times.