Christmas Scavenger Hunt premiered on Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas on November 3rd and stars Kim Shaw (Belinda) and Kevin McGarry (Dustin). Tom Arnold appears in a supporting role as Belinda's dad.
RATING (out of 5): 🎄
General Movie Details: Belinda (aka Linda and Bel) is a big city career girl with a real estate development company. She is up for a promotion if she can secure a property in her hometown for a her client. She is going home for Christmas (and a wedding apparently) for the first time in years. Dustin is small town boy who never left home even when they were supposed to go to the big city together for college. As luck would have it, Dustin runs the textile mill museum that Belinda is tasked with purchasing. We find out that the mill is in need of restoration and financial backing which means it will need a Christmas miracle to avoid being sold. Thanks to Belinda's meddling dad, she is paired up with Dustin for the town's annual Christmas scavenger hunt.
Obligatory moment of snark/personal rant: I was completely prepared to fall head over heels for this movie and in a way I did... flat on my face. The script was terrible. I love the idea of scavenger hunt and Christmas themed is a bonus. However, there appears to be no rush to complete the 10 tasks and the winner is decided based on a karaoke competition at the party that evening. Even though Dustin is the reigning champ from the last few years, I don't see any level of hustle. I know that they supposed have until midnight but really why procrastinate. Besides since the hunt ends with karaoke and a party, I'd imagine the hunt really ends by 9pm or so. I am so disappointed at the unrealized potential here that could be enjoyed with some relatively easy and small tweaks to the story. Additionally, why is it that the Christmas miracle always comes through in the end. In this case it's all thanks to Belinda's giving nature during the hunt. I kind of would have liked it if the Christmas miracle were that they were able to come to a compromise with the future developer to save the mill building. I am guessing that the mill building would have been on the National Register of Historic Places or at least the state/town register and as such probably wouldn't have been able to be easily torn down anyway. Besides, this is a more believable outcome in my mind. Finally, I never really got the feeling that there was real chemistry between the main characters. Don't get me wrong there was plenty of familiarity but I didn't get the feeling of real passion. Belinda's breakup with her boyfriend and admission that Dustin was always the one within a few days seemed comical and entirely unrealistic to me.
Hallmark Movie Connection: Kim Shaw appears to be making her Hallmark debut with this film. She has appeared in a number of series and movies on TV but nothing that I've watched. I hope that her next Hallmark film has a better script and she has a better chemistry with her next co-star. Kevin McGarry was previously in Winter Love Story (2019) with Jen Lilley. He also is the "new" Mountie on When Calls the Heart (2019 - he gets a better offer?) with well everyone Hallmark! Interestingly in looking at their IMDB pages it appears that Kevin had a role in one episode of Kim Shaw's TV show, Saving Hope, in 2017.
You'll have to let me know if I'm being too harsh just because the movie didn't live up to my expectations based the potential I saw in the concept.
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