Holiday in Handcuffs (2007)

Number Rolled: 43

Movie Name/Year: Holiday in Handcuffs (2007)

Genre: Romance

Length: 89 minutes

Rating: PG

Director: Ron Underwood

Writer: Sara Endsley

Actors: Melissa Joan Hart, Mario Lopez, Timothy Bottoms, Markie Post, June Lockhart, Kyle Howard, Vanessa Lee Evigan, Gabrielle Miller, Layla Alizada, Cedric De Souza

When the man Trudie is seeing randomly breaks up with her the same day he’s supposed to go with her to her family’s Christmas weekend, she has a nervous breakdown. On a whim, she kidnaps one of her customers and forces him to pretend he’s her boyfriend.

This movie, surprisingly enough, wasn’t terrible. Between it being a TV movie and starring Melissa Joan Hart, I went into this thinking I was going to be bored to tears. Actually, it wound up being pretty creative. Don’t get me wrong, it ended exactly the way you’d expect this kind of straight-to-TV film to end, but it delivered a pretty decent path to get there.

In all honesty, some of the reason I liked the movie could involve a touch of biasness. It was about a black sheep who did something crazy just to get her family to notice her. It’s something very easy for me to relate to. Granted, I’ve never randomly kidnapped some guy and made him pretend to be my boyfriend, but there’s a certain kind of crazy that comes with wanting nothing more than for your family to be proud of you for just one day. When you feel like you just don’t meet everyone’s standards and they don’t need or, in most cases, want you around, it’s easy to see how someone might have a little bit of a nervous breakdown.

I’m a little sensitive to this kind of storyline and so I probably liked it a little bit more than the majority of viewers would. I can’t even comment on the acting because I was so wrapped up in the script that I can’t remember anything worth discussing.

Netflix’s Prediction for Me – 3.1/5

Overall Opinion – 3.5/5

Movie Trailer: (No working official trailer was found, instead, I've included video of the first 14 minutes.)