Lucky Christmas

The run up to Christmas is the one time of year I am prepared to watch predictable and cheesy films.

This film is just about as predictable as it gets, you know what is coming from the first minute and you aren't proved wrong. Sometimes however you really do just want to watch something undemanding and this fits the bill.

What makes this an above average TV Movie is the cast. It suddenly clicked halfway through that Elizabeth Berkeley is the 'star' of the infamous 'Showgirls'- but she is OK in this movie. The real star however is Jason Gray-Stanford who I thought excellent in this.

I watched this film with my wife and kids and we all enjoyed it so I recommend it to those who know what to expect.

This has to be the dumbest movie I've seen in a long, long time. The plot follows no legitimate logical. The acting is comparable to an elementary school play. There is absolutely no consistency in the plot. What most films would try to make characters sympathetic, this film makes characters appear as detestable pieces of human garbage. Characters make decisions that are questionable at best and indescribably moronic at worst. The script is ridden with inconsistencies and the most basic dialogue imaginable. It baffles me how anybody can find any entertainment in this film at all, as this isn't even to the point where it's fun to get angry at, it just makes you want to drop an eighty pound dumbbell on your head. The only reason I could find NOT to give it a 1/10 was that it was shot using a camera, and the actors were in frame most of the time. Those of us who were able to make it to the infuriating ending of this sorry excuse for

A decent Hallmark Channel Original Movie starring Elizabeth Berkley (Saved By The Bell, Showgirls) and Jason Gray-Stanford (the clutzy detective on Monk.) Both turned in pretty good performances in this quite predictable average romance set at Christmastime. It really has very little do with Christmas, which is sad because that's what a freakin' Christmas movie should be -- Christmasy! But with so many produced for television every year, many of the stories are stale yada yada yada that could almost just as easily take place in August. This is one of those. Not too terrible, though. Surely could be a lot worse but when it comes to their Made-for-TV movies, Hallmark Channel routinely has at least average productions... and if you know their cards, they're dripping with sap.

--A Kat Pirate Screener

Elizabeth Berkley is once again the freshest thing in an otherwise stale movie, this one made-for-TV. Sorry yuletide concoction attempts to equate car theft, a lottery win, ice hockey and last-chance boy-girl romance with the holiday spirit. Financially-strapped single mom (whose husband disappeared somewhat mysteriously before the story begins) has her car stolen with a special "Christmas lottery ticket" in the glove compartment. Of course the ticket is a winner--worth an underachieving one million dollars--and of course the guy involved in the car-nabbing is a handsome bachelor with a soft spot for struggling moms and their offspring. Berkley actually manages to make her scenes tender and believable, however the rest of this Hallmark Channel presentation is rather bedraggled.

"Lucky Christmas" has an opening that might tempt some to think this won't be a very good film for the holidays. But once it gets past two grown men, Mike and Joe, drinking beer as they toss Joe's family mementos into a barrel fire, the story takes on some new twists and angles with a single mom her young son.

The lucky aspect of this film is a state lottery in Michigan that each week from Thanksgiving to Christmas will pick a winner for one million dollars. The plot develops around that when the singly mom, Holly, has a winning lottery ticket about two weeks before Christmas. But several things happen that keep her from having her ticket to cash in by midnight on Christmas Eve.

These characters will come together, along with a few more, in an unusual and refreshingly different Christmas movie. The three principals in the cast are all very good. Elizabeth Berkley is Holy, Jason Gray-Stanford is Mike, and Michell Kummen plays Holly's son, Max.

This is a good Christmas film about hard work, trust, kindness and family. Most people should enjoy it.