Christmas Sail

Christmas Sail (2021) - Hallmark

This one should be interesting based on the cast alone.  We have Patrick Sabongui, an intense actor who has spent the last few years playing the terminally pissed off police captain on The Flash, and being of Middle Eastern descent has probably played more terrorists than I’m sure he would have liked to in his career, Katee Sackhoff who has had a career playing characters of varying degrees of rage and intensity, particularly Starbuck on the BSG reboot, and Terry O’Quinn… The Stepfather.  I don’t know if you kids out there have seen The Stepfather and it’s various sequels back in the 80’s, but before The Stepfather, Mr. O’Quinn was just a regular working character actor, but after the Stepfather he became one of the most frightening people on the planet earth.  When I see Terry O’Quinn in a movie I know full well he is fully capable of flying off the handle and killing everybody, including the folks in this Hallmark Christmas movie.  That didn’t happen, obviously, but I felt it could have.

Liz (Starbuck) works in a Seattle department store doing stuff.  Maybe decorating for Christmas is her job?  Seems like a seasonal gig at best to me and maybe she does more, but it wasn’t made quite clear.  Liz has the most adorable daughter in the world in little Hannah (Emma Oliver) and I guess their lives are okay other than the fact her house recently burnt to the ground, her husband has left her, and Liz hates her dad.  Other than that, all seems well.

Unfortunately circumstance is forcing Liz to head back to her old hometown around Christmas because her dad Dennis (The Stepfather) hurt himself saving some dumb toddler from a falling Christmas tree.  Liz doesn’t want this… I mean otherwise she’d be spending Christmas in a Seattle Motel, that’s how much she doesn’t want to go home, and Dad doesn’t want this, because Christmas reminds him of his dead wife, because of course she’s dead, but here they are.

When Liz and Hannah arrive in Small Town, she’s picked up by her old BFF Luke (Captain Singh) who's heart still skips a beat every time he sees Liz, and he shows her around her old town, and also shows her the old sailboat.  Seems this town has a yearly competition called the Christmas Boat Parade or something where folks decorate their boats for the holidays and float them around the bay to see who wins.  Liz’s mom dominated this competition every year, until she got sick and died.  Liz thought her angry dad had sold the boat but he didn’t, so she decided to enter it into this years contest.  Again, Dad doesn’t want this because he hates Christmas and stuff, but Liz isn’t asking, she’s telling. 

So Liz and Hannah get to decorating, Luke eventually helps out because he can’t refuse Liz anything… ever… Dad still doesn’t like it but gosh darn his granddaughter and her perpetual effusive joy is beating the old man down.  Also, the old man is losing the family home because ‘his wife took care of those things’.  So he thought that mortgages paid themselves?  I’m confused about this.  Who paid the electric bill after the old lady kicked it?  Good news though, this years contest has a 25G cash prize, which is just enough to save the family home if they can win it, and more importantly, Luke and Liz are starting to rediscover each other.  Looks like these crazy middle-aged kids have been in love with each other since they were in kindergarten, but you know, life happens.  But now love has served up a second chance.  Will love part 2 happen?  Will father and daughter rediscover what they lost?  Will the boat win that loot and save the house?  Spoiler alert… yes, yes, and yes… At Christmas.

So my friends, what we have with ‘Christmas Sail’, outside of the fact that most of the populace probably can’t relate to Christmas Sailboats, is your typical Hallmarky Romantic Christmas movie, albeit one with a stronger cast…  a cast definitely playing against type.  .

Of course of the things we expect to see in these types of movies, most of it is here.  Lots of hot cocoa drinking, plenty of canned Christmas music playing in the background, Christmas tree shopping and decorating, though a kid was almost murdered by a tree which is unique, and we had a super cute kid who was half orphan, because Hannah’s dad, who isn't dead but hasn't even called his daughter during these holidays, is clearly the worst, we also had wise old people kicking sage knowledge… not the Stepfather because he was angry, hostile and obstinate throughout most of this movie, but Luke’s mom (Tosca Baggoo) handled those duties for us.  We also had a sort of near miss kiss, a super soft breakup of our couple after they decided they wanted to be together, and of course our heroine coming to the ultimate realization that her life would be much more complete if only she had a man, just like we expect from our Hallmarky Holiday Romance movies. 

What was missing, that will cost this movie vomits, was… well… winter.  And Caroling I think.  Don't recall seeing any caroling of mistletoe.  Sailing boats is cute, but it’s not very wintery, and I could see where they tried to put snow on the ground here and there, but as we have already discussed, trying to put snow on the ground when one is filming a movie in summer in Vancouver is not easy, and while most of the actors were bundled up in winter gear there were times where Katee Sackoff just couldn’t put on a skully, scarf and overcoat on a 90 degree day to shoot a movie and was just sporting a summer blouse, and we can’t be mad at her about that.  And the boat competition was kind of lame.  The decorated boats looked very nice, especially our heroes winning entry, but there were only three decorated boats.  What kind of competition is that?

Still a very worthy Romantic Christmas movie, only setback somewhat by a lack of cold and the overriding uneasiness that if they keep giving him lip, the Stepfather was going kill somebody.  Three Vomits!