2019's Holiday Rush stars Romany Malco, paired up with The Walking Dead's Sonequa Martin-Green, exhibiting a chemistry that positively pops off the screen. Unfortunately, this romcom's cliche-ridden script isn't all that funny or surprising but, like most of Netflix's original Christmas output, can be filed under 'decent enough' to put on in the background while you do other Christmas stuff.
Malco is the excellently named 'Rush' Williams, a motor-mouthed, jive-talkin New York radio DJ whose popularity has single-handedly rejuvenated the station he works at. Looking forward to a big, fat holiday bonus, Rush gets the wrong kind of Christmas surprise when his new boss instead sacks him and replaces him with a younger, hotter disc jockey.
Widowed Rush isn't so much concerned about the job as he is about how his four ultra-spoiled kids will react to becoming "poor" overnight, right before the holidays. They're expecting "mini-horses" but instead are being booted out of their plush mansion back into the cramped house where their dearly departed moms got sick before she passed.
This riches-to-rags tale might have been more effective if the kids had been set up as sympathetic to begin with, instead of boastful, selfish little turds. It, of course, comes out that daddy didn't know what else to do after mommy passed, so just threw money at them. There's a nice moral here about the best Christmas gift of all being spending time with family, though it doesn't feel earned because these kids are such monsters. The film does, however, coast pleasantly on the charisma of Malco and Martin-Green as his producer and long-time friend Roxy.
Throughout Rush and Roxy's quest to get back on the air and back on top, the inevitable romance grows. It's sweet to see a film where the infatuation evolves out of an already established friendship, rather than the usual 'opposites-attract' guff, even if the whole thing seems inevitable from scene one.
With many underdeveloped subplots, the film feels like an uneven jumble, poorly served by a lack of good jokes. I also have real trouble trying to comprehend the motivation of Rush's new station boss Joss (Tamala Jones) who, never mind sacking the station's top performer, then attempts to sabotage his subsequent shot at redemption. There's no explanation for any of this other than she's just plain evil and her cartoonish, cackling performance feels like it belongs in a different movie.
Much more entertainingly, Rush's more grounded old-school Aunt Jo threatens to whup the kids' asses into shape herself and is, brilliantly, played by Darlene Love from Lethal Weapon. As we know, Love famously sang on many of Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound' Christmas numbers, including 'Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)', which she gets to triumphantly belt out during this film's buoyant finale.
It’s a corny film, so thank the heavens for the easygoing warmth and charisma of Malco. The less said about the completely out-of-place 'Force Ghost' appearance of Rush's dead wife the better, though...
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