Three Wise Men and a Baby

I really enjoy this movie, the humour, family connection of not being perfect as we all see within these Christmas movies. I really like all three male actors. That "LOVE" between a man and woman wasn't the focus of this movie. It was more about family and the brotherly love. I have already watched it twice and will watch it again next year I am sure. How we see all three brothers so different in their personalities but in the end all come together. The other cast members all played great and interesting parts to the movies which just added to a great movie. I could also see another movie with the same characters next year.

Almost every Hallmark movie uses the same formula, a single woman with some stereotypical job who wants to make it in business meets an attractive single male... It's really, really, really BORING ! This movie isn't.

So what if this was a rip off of "Three Men and a Baby", plenty of Hallmark films are rip offs of previous ones. And Hollywood is full of rip offs and remakes, there isn't a lot that is new. I really liked Paul Campbell, Andrew Walker and Tyler Hynes together in this film, we know them from other rom-coms. They are flexible and can do romance and comedy.

Kudos to Paul Campbell and Kimberly Sustad for their script. I really liked them together in "A Wedding Every Weekend".

The story about three men who find a baby has been told many times in the movies, starting with a silent movie in 1916, followed by several more, most notably "3 Godfathers" with John Wayne in 1948 and 1986's "Three Men and a Baby" with Tom Selleck.

Writers Paul Campbell and Kimberley Sustad have taken the story and updated it in clever and expert fashion. This is extremely well written as the baby causes the three men to come to understand themselves, as well as women, particularly their own mother.

The three actors here, Campbell, Tyler Hynes, and Andrew Walker, are all just wonderful and you can tell they really enjoyed playing these parts. Supporting them are Ali Liebert as Fiona and Fiona Vroom as Susie, both very good, and the producers cleverly cast Margaret Collin, who co-starred in the Selleck movie, as the mother, and she is simply terrific. Add Matt Hamilton as an obnoxious neighbor and Sustad herself, briefly, as an ER doctor, and you've got a cast that comes together perfectly.

The direction and editing are great and serve to add to the spirited, funny, and sometimes heartwarming script.

Sustad and Campbell have written before for Hallmark (the wonderful "Christmas by Starlight") and we can only hope that this partnership continues.

Sustad's other new movie this 2022 season is "Lights! Camera! Christmas!," another "10" in my book, but "Wise Men" beats it by a "baby step" as the best so far.

If this doesn't put you in the Christmas spirit, nothing will.

Ps Wrote the above review in 2022. Turns out that this movie was the most watched made-for-cable movie of that year in the US and Campbell and Sustad won a Leo Award in Canada for their screenplay/writing.

The main plot takes from the original "Three Men and a Baby" movie. I am a 50+ yr old male that loves his Christmas TV, music, etc. My wife loves her Hallmark movies and it's usually the one thing I'm not fond of (usually boring and predictable). However, THIS one I really enjoyed. The "brothers" characters played off of each other very well which made this a very entertaining movie. The script was one of the better written ones, with lots of implied humour between the brothers arguing like a married couple. Still predictable but, once into it, was worth the watch. The baby also did a good job lol.

Why does this have such glowing reviews?

Three reasons:

It's very, very funny. It's well written. And the cast, for the most part, are all equally superb.

Paul Campbell and Kimberly Sustad have hopefully already signed long-term contracts w/Hallmark as they clearly know what they're doing. They're both not only excellent actors with great comic timing, but they KNOW HOW TO WRITE comedy -- and drama as well.

They create empathetic characters with believable relationships right from the start. No line is wasted, no line is unnecessary. A few reviewers have mentioned how horrible and unfunny it is that someone left a baby alone right before Christmas, but IMO these people must've gotten up on the wrong side of the bed and are really angry about something else in their lives.

It's a MOVIE, not a documentary, and again, the way it's set up is credible, as is the resolution.

And while all three leads are great -- both funny and at times very touching -- special kudos go out to Tyler Hynes, who's dry, sarcastic delivery is spot-on, and to Margaret Collins, who matches him line for line. She's completely believable as the mother of these three misfits.

Bravo Hallmark. (Something I never thought I'd say.)