Operation Christmas

I saw this one for the first time this year and wasn't sure if I would like it for some reason. But I was pleasantly surprised. Emotions are up and down but overall it's a feel good movie with a tearjerker ending. I'm not sure how it happened but these two lead actors were new to me but WOW Tricia and Marc were great together. I have since seen them each in other movies and they have both become favorites.

I'll start off with saying that I really liked this film. It was obviously shot in the summer, which made all of the snow (other than the glacier scene) a little comical. The unending sunshine is also only possible in the summer in the Pacific Northwest. It's all stuff we can overlook.

The idea of meeting someone whom puts themselves in danger for the greater good is a theme used throughout the years, and for good reason. It's an underlying theme of Christmas as well. Tricia Helfer knocked her role out of the park in this film, and I'd have never found this film had it not been for her mentioning it on Twitter.

The military stuff was entirely annoying as a veteran, but I understand that most writers have only a cursory knowledge of the military when doing their writing. Firefighters say the same thing when watching firefighting movies. Writers are rarely experts in their subject matter. I'd like to have seen active duty military there to advise on dress & appearance. I'd also wished that deployments were more accurately depicted, but this isn't a film about the military. It's a film about giving, and what it means to come together as a community for Christmas. One has to understand that distinction. I, as a veteran, understand that. They did a great job with this film once you get past nit-picking, and I'll watch it every Christmas from here on out.

I saw this movie in pretty bad conditions: it was airing on French TV, and, as basically all Hallmark movies, it was targeted at middle-aged housewives, who are supposed not to be able to speak English at all and to want everything in French. So no English version available, only dubbed in French, and therefore with rewritten dialog. And for this kind of movie, let's say the writers and the dubbing actors are rarely encouraged to do their best...

So it took me a bit of time to get into it, the beginning feeling a bit awkward with the actors speaking in a voice that isn't theirs and having sometimes cheesy lines of rewritten dialog. But from when Olivia and Scott meet for the second time and the "Operation Christmas" actually starts to get prepared, I got hooked. No Santa Claus or so-called "Christmas magic" here: it's a story of real people in quite a difficult situation who are just trying to get their little share of happiness in this supposedly joyful time of the year. This is the kind of movie that relies a lot on the actors, and I guess that for such a film often considered "minor", some would just "do the job" and hurry back home for dinner. Here, the whole cast is great and does an excellent work. But one of them especially shines, and that's Tricia Helfer: she gives everything she's got to her character, and really makes you feel for this woman, torn between the excitement of a starting romance she thought would no more happen, and her high doubts about herself being able to cope with the kind of life you get with a man in the military. And let me be honest: mostly because of her performance and in spite of the awkward French dubbing, I ended up with my eyes not completely dry.

So of course, there are probably some factual inaccuracies and the ending is quite cliché. Well now, as someone else has pointed out: this is a Hallmark movie, it has to have a cliché ending. But all in all, this is one of the best Christmas movies I've seen, and if it ever reaches my side of the Atlantic as a DVD, I'll definitely buy it - and probably get another weird look from my wife for getting this kind of "girly" stuff...

Army, mothers, Christmas trees,military wives, gifts, romance, kids.... A complete Hallmark, offering two good presences - Gabrielle Rose and Marc Blucas. Short, decent and charming , first for the smart use of dilemma of a career woman , attracted by military, animated by fears, desiring full happiness, heart of impressive show. So, far to be bad.

This movie tried to hit the target but missed it by a mile. I was in the military and while you can ship out anytime the ways its portrayed in this movie is so far off base. Also they show a lifestyle for a sergeant that is way out of their pay range. I just didn't like it. I hate when they try to do movies about military life but don't fully do research. That or they just change it to fit their so called "vision". Also you don't deploy one day and come back the next. That just doesn't happen. When deployed its for a while not just 24 hours. They fact that everyone is oh its the military life we love it its great is false. Also they make the lady the bad person because she has concerns. Sorry but she had a valid point.