A Christmas Fumble
Reviewed by Lisa Sue
What could go together better than football and Christmas? I
mean Christmas is deep into the NFL season. For some of us the final nail in
our fantasy football coffin is nailed Christmas week. Yea for 7th out
of 12th place! Other leagues may have one more week to play and the playoff picture for actual NFL teams are
getting more clear with only a couple of weeks left in regular season…and it is
a week out before start of the college bowl games. Let’s face it watching
football is what we do in between stuffing ourselves at Christmas. And glad to
see a Christmas movie that respects that! Well, not quite. I’ll let you in on a
secret right now; Christmas fumble has few Christmas trimmings (no tree shopping
montage, snow ball fights, or cookie baking in this movie!) and sadly even less
football. So while initially I was holding out hope that this movie would offer
us a look at Christmas the way many of us celebrate it, passed out watching
football on tv, I would be proven wrong by OWN and HARPO productions which has
2 movies this year joining the Christmas movie fray.
Ok, now let me give you the set up. Nicole is the Queen of
Crisis management, working for a boss, Christian, who thinks he’s Idris Elba
(he’s not). Christian is dangling a partnership and running the London Office
if she will delay her Caribbean Christmas vacation and handle this one client.
Nicole holds fast, she’s really been looking forward to sun and relaxation away
from frosty Chicago and no promotion is going to make her give up Turks and Caicos
with her boyfriend Greg. We feel for Greg, cause he’ll be gone by the end of
this movie. It will be nice seeing the implosion. Her assistant Carla presses
her if a holiday is really all it is as Nicole doesn’t really turn down clients.
Turns out Carla’s intuition was right, the vacation angle is not the full
story. The client, Jordan, is an ex of hers. So to delve into what got Jordan
in trouble in the first place. Jordan is a sports anchor, who played football
back in the day for Drake University and is now accused of taking money from a
school booster. Jordan’s people turn to Nicole and her firm to set this PR
nightmare right. As career driven as Nicole is, she can’t help but outline a plan
for her old college boyfriend, but still intends to pass this off to someone
else and take that much needed Christmas vacation. Except once the ball gets
rolling, does Nicole really think Christian is just going to hand this off to
someone else? Or course not, cause no one else is better equipped than Nicole
to get Jordan’s favorables up, reduce the negative press, and get him his job
with back WITH a new big fat contract.
Time then to delve into Jordan’s life- he’s engaged to
reality star wannabe Lacey, Lacey and Nicole obviously clash, and we couldn’t
be made to dislike Lacey more if she stole from orphans. In a “keep your
friends close keep your enemies closer” Sun Tzu move, Lacey invites Nicole to
her bridal shower where we see that Jordan’s mom isn’t a fan of Lacey either and is
still holding out that Nicole and Jordan will find their way back together. We
also meet Jordan’s brother Keith and his partner Delvin, who also seem more
partial to Nicole than Lacey. Which begs the question, why is Jordan with
Lacey? Keith lets it spill that technically Jordan didn’t propose to Lacey.
They were at a jewelry store, Lacey’s behind the scenes IG was shooting, they
had been discussing marriage and one thing led to another…and Mr. Nice guy
Jordan didn’t have to heart to tell Lacey it was a mistake. We’ll forgo that
dude was willing to marry someone, just to not upset them? Seems like there
were several fumbles going on in this movie.
Nicole’s plan to rehabilitate Jordan’s image is working, they did a Christmas tree giveaway (only a mention, no montage) a sport equipment donation so Jordan could play Santa to a school in need and his favorables are up. Lacey’s constant social media updates on their wedding planning is diminishing the good vibes as the lavish over the top celebrity lifestyle that Lacey is pitching serves as ammunition for Jordan’s detractors to haters like Mark Greene who is the one who leaked the story that Jordan took improper money from a college booster 15 years ago. But the Queen of Crisis, who’s defended people in way worse situations, isn’t so easily intimidated. She has a plan to win over Mark Greene, which manifests itself in Jordan’s whole family taking donations to Mark’s food kitchen. Fortune is shining down on Nicole and Jordan, because it turns out Mark’s caterer just backed out of the big holiday dinner so what is Mark to do? Nicole and Jordan to the rescue! I suspect that if we were to ask the caterer they would say they got a phone call telling them to back out by someone sounding suspiciously like assistant Carla….but hey that’s just me.
So Jordan’s family is set to do the sides like collards,
macaroni cheese, yams and corn and Nicole is sent to buy out some BBQ from some place to
provide the meats..a pretty delicious sounding spread if I do say so. The whole
family works hard and Jordan impresses Mark by having the diner ready to go on
time. And this is where it kinda falls apart for poor Greg, who instead of
answering Nicole’s messages to come to the kitchen and help just sits at home
and watches football. That’s the last straw for Nicole because Greg never puts
her first. They are through. Lacey, while present at the shelter, doesn’t come off
well either as she’s literally buffing her nails instead of helping. Then to top
it off, she wasn’t too bothered when Jordan’s mom faints at the end of the
meal, but don’t worry Mom just forgot to take her meds and she’ll be alright.
In the breakup with Greg, Nicole drops a bombshell that Jordan took the booster
money FOR HER. She needed the money to pay for her last year in college, and
Jordan risked everything to help her. The reason Mark new about the money is
because the same booster had approached him first about taking the money but he
declined. Mark is now on Team Jordan having let go of his anger and seeing the
man that Jordan had become. Something about what happened before doesn’t
matter, all that matters is who Jordan is now. Which I don’t think is true in
the eyes of the criminal justice system, but Mark drops his public shaming of
Jordan, and in return Jordan has a new place to set up a sports camp and an art
camp.
There’s a whole story line about art in this Christmas
football movie, told you this movie is basically a rom com that just happens at
Christmas about someone who used to play football. Nicole and Jordan met in an art
class back at Drake, turns out Jordan is a pretty good painter. He has kept up
painting, each year one of his originals is auctioned off help his foundation’s
fundraising. To the surprise of no one, Nicole was too busy with her job to
keep painting, although side note they name dropped Ernie Barnes as an athlete
artist, who among his many paintings is “The Sugar Shack” that was used on Good
Times as well as Marvin Gaye’s album cover, so there’s your fun fact for the
day! Well after all Nicole’s herculean efforts, Jordan got his show back, got a
new big fat contract but lost Lacey. Who got what she wanted, which is a
reality show starring her in LA! Jordan doing right inspired Nicole to come
clean that Jordan took the money for her. She got the partnership and the
London office but instead of taking her hard earned reward, resigned. Thus
freeing her up for what ultimately took 15 years (condensed into 83 movie mins)
to achieve- a second chance and a fresh start for her and Jordan.
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