Jingle Bell Heist - Lack the Charm for A Supposedly Christmas Themed Rom-Com Movie, Though At Least the Heist was Interesting Enough

I was kind of looking forward to this movie when I saw it in the Coming Soon section of Netflix. But when it was released, I did not realized as I was finishing another series and ended up only watching it yesterday. OK then, I'll dive straight into it now.

Brief Story Line

Sophia (Olivia Holt - Totally Killer, Cruel Summer TV series etc) was working as staff for the large Sterling department store in London owned by Maxwell Sterling (Peter Serafinowicz - How to Train Your Dragon live version, John Wick: Chapter 2 etc) and his wife Cynthia (Lucy Punch - A Series of Unfortunate Events TV series, Hot Fuzz etc), though secretly she sometimes would steal from the store. Meanwhile Nick O'Connor (Connor Swindells - Sex Education TV series, William Tell etc) was working in a small IT shop but he had access to the security system of Sterling stores.

Unexpectedly, the two of them somehow came across the idea of stealing from the Sterlings due to some financial motives. They decided to work together in order to achieve their goals, but just like any other heist, there would be complications during their mission.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this film.

End of Brief Story Line

As I am sure you would have known by now, I am a fan of heist genre whether it's small or big, simple or complicated. That was the main reason for me to give this movie a try since the story was about a heist combined with some romantic comedy, plus set during Christmas time. However, the film did not exactly lived up to my expectation, mainly on the two lead characters. For a supposed rom-com, I thought the two of them did not have any spark or a nice chemistry. I am not sure whether it's because they were incompatible or due to the way their characters were written (probably they wanted to show two people who were emotionally hurt). Thing is, it made the whole film lack charm to my opinion.

Anyway, after going through more than half of the movie that did not have anything truly exciting, finally it came to life after almost an hour mark. From that moment on, I was able to appreciate the film better, especially when we got few surprising twists. I think it should not come as a shock if you see it with full attention cause they were not that hard to deduce (although I did not manage to do so, likely because of my lack of excitement). I believe my wife would be able to guess them if she had watched this one (I am sure at one point of time, she would watch this as it's a Christmas themed movie that she loves). 

Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were few additional support characters such as Sophia's mom Rita (Natasha Joseph), Nick's room mate Ralph (Michael Salami - Supacell TV series etc), Detective Jones (Homer Todiwala), Brianna (Poppy Drayton - The Shannar Chronicles TV series etc) and several others. There was also the appearance of child actor Alara-Star Khan who portrayed Maddie that I thought was very adorable here. They did their job adequately but it was clear that the movie relied on the two lead stars. Too bad their relationship was a bit unconvincing for me though it would seem that some critics and lots of audience were quite happy with it as proven by the more than average critics score and making it to the top chart in various countries.

The film was directed by Michael Fimognari director of To All the Boys: P. S. I Still Love You and its sequel and also known for cinematographer of movies like Doctor Sleep, Before I fall etc. It was written by British best selling novel author Abby McDonald. The way I see it, I think she wanted to write about a movie where the characters were not perfect and had a lot of flaws, which was fine if it was a drama film. But if it was supposed to be romantic comedy heist film, I personally think it needs to be a bit lighter to be easier to enjoy. At least the ending was pretty satisfying and the twists were a nice surprise.

Overall to me this was an OK heist film but not really a fun rom-com due to the lack of chemistry of the two lead characters (there was very little comedic moment here). I did like the ending and the Christmas setting in London which was very lovely to see, plus the festive mood, although it did not have enough classic Christmas songs during the whole movie. Oh the film had duration of just 96 minutes. There was no post end credit scene, but during the closing credits we were shown a nice scene. So if you are looking for a light Christmas rom-com movie, I do not think you would find what you are looking for here. But if you want to see some nice enough heist with few surprises, then you could at least have fun there. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars