Merry Mystery Christmas (2023) -
I felt a little bit disappointed that Olivier Renaud would put his name to this production. I've seen him in numerous Made For TV Christmas films and he's always been excellent, but although he was still the better actor by far, he just didn't seem to fit in this film as Detective Ryan Bridger. I could easily see him as an Office Manager/Architect/Winery Owner type, but he wasn't a Detective for me. Perhaps some of that was down to the direction as well, because I didn't think that any of the actors gave a good performance, which might have also been hampered by the script too.
'Catch Me If You Claus' (2023) did something similar story wise but with far better production values and still managed to make it funny without the cringe that this one had.
I thought that it needed to pick a side, it could either be a serious crime story or a comedy, but not this weird blend of both. Go fully 'Home Alone' (1990) If you want laughs.
The whole story and its delivery was flawed with loads of overreaction and idiotic moments as well as farcical ideas that would never happen and didn't even really work comically. It was ridiculously easy to pick holes in it way more than they could or should get away with for comedy value. The writing was pure sugar when it should have been a Crime Drama with Romance on the side or vice versa.
I didn't want Ryan to get together with Krista (Brittany Bristow) because she was distinctly unlikeable.
And Justin Nurse as Stu the big Gay News Boss was very silly and not professional at all. The Police Captain (Nicole Underhay) was stupid and unfit for her role too.
Most of them seemed miscast as if the producers just didn't care. The actor playing the other News Anchor (Colin Furlong) would never have been put on air in that role even on a small local network.
And the homeowners who had been robbed were all very saccharin too. Real tug on the heart strings schmaltz that could make even the sweetest tooth vomit.
This was LOW, LOW budget - Another crappy twig of a tree and lighting ceremony with barely any people in attendance. You can find ways of filling a screen with just a few people and make a tree look impressive if you don't use the wrong angles. And at one point Stu said that half the city were at the tree lighting ceremony which would suggest that the city had a population of about 100 people.
The wardrobe department was awful too. Stu's jackets were something else.
And I didn't like Olivier's haircut either.
Also, the big whodunnit and why reveal at the end was lame!
Honestly, as much as I normally love these little stories I think that it's about time they stopped churning them out for the sake of it and concentrated on delivering better budgeted, good quality instead of quantity. In general they have a good catalogue of actors to rely on and with some thought the Girl/Boy meets Boy/Girl formula can be structured in to all sorts of stories easily. This film really failed to do anything good with what they had and it really felt like they weren't even that bothered about trying to anyway.
On another day, in a different mood and if Olivier hadn't been in it, I would have turned this off after about 25 minutes max!
3.79/10.
