CHRISTMAS MOVIE REVIEW: Hometown Holiday (2019)

Spoiler Alert: This is Horrible

I just watched “Hometown Holiday” (2019) for the first time. Here’s my take and considering it’s nearly three years old, will contain spoilers. Speaking of spoilers here’s one off the bat---if this makes you ultimately not watch Hometown Holiday, I did you a huge favor.

PROS: It has the traditional feel-good ending almost everyone’s looking for in a Christmas movie and is only an hour and 24 minutes of run time. Also, if you like good looking people you’re in luck because whoever the casting director made sure the entire small town of Rust Creek was exceptionally fuckin’ good looking.

CONS: Look, I like cheesy holiday movies as much as the next guy and don’t need plots and story arcs that rival The Shawshank Redemption to enjoy a Christmas flick. But holy shit, everything about Hometown Holiday is stupid. The cast is terrible with a bunch of non-names, which sometimes makes for a pleasant surprise but in this case can’t act worth shit—and the writing surely didn’t help either. There’s nothing more I enjoy than lonely people finding love and especially at Christmas time but I couldn’t behind either lead character, Ryan or Krista. How they met was stupid and while Ryan’s girl (Amber) turned out to be a fame-craving whore, Ryan told Krista he had a girl right away and she barely broke stride. That’s pretty low-key hoe’ish herself. As for Ryan, no clue why he lied and said he was a rancher but 80% of this movie could’ve been avoided with him just telling her the reason he was in town (to try and sign a viral music artist). Seriously, the plot and writing was straight-up lazy made worse by amateur level acting. Circling back to Krista, she used to be a theater actress in New York City and was apparently on her way to stardom before giving it up? She must’ve really lost her on-stage chops during retirement because the Christmas play she returned to the stage in back home during the movie’s “climatic conclusion” was fucking horrible, but not as horrible as how Ryan decided he’d win her heart by donning a Santa costume. Good God, even the little kid who played Max’s son was annoying terrible. Lastly, the final 30 minutes of this makes this Christmas’y enough, but don’t get fooled into thinking Christmas is the central theme, it’s most definitely not.

VERDICT: I try to find things to like about Christmas movies no matter what and again, I’m typically a fan of cheesy flicks that are predictable, as long as there’s an element of cuteness and charm. In this case, there’s not much of anything redeeming. Truth is Hometown Holiday is a pile of shit and only Ernest Saves Christmas and maybe Christmas with the Kranks prevents it from being the worst Christmas movie I’ve seen. GRADE: F (and the F stands for fuck this movie)