Foster Father Christmas
After their main benefactor passes away The Mistletoe foster home run by former foster child Jimmy Adams (George Newbern - Father of the Bride) is hoping that Helen Radke (Roma Downey) will take over from where her father left off. Unfortunately Helen has other ideas as she barely knew her father and has arranged to sell everything except the old family home. Not that it will stop Jimmy from trying to persuade her to help out as he won't take no for an answer. But Jimmy has another concern as he has just taken in young tearaway Wylie (Scott Terra) when sheriff Margie (Doris Roberts - Narrow Escape) catches him shoplifting and Wylie turns out to be the son of a girl Jimmy knew when he was a teenager. But Wylie is convinced his father is going to show up and collect him.
I've watched enough Christmas movies to spot where a storyline is going to go pretty much within the first 10 minutes of a movie starting. And when it comes to "The Sons of Mistletoe" it was very obvious how this movie was going to play out as Jimmy wears down the ice queen Helen until she is not just fond of him but also fond of the boys at the foster home. But in fairness whilst there is this very obvious romantic side to the story it isn't a romantic Christmas movie but focuses more on the comedy of Jimmy and the boys as not only do they work together to wear Helen down but have this haphazard lifestyle in a rundown old house. It isn't that sharpest of comedies but charming in a simplistic, cute sort of way.
But whilst there is obvious side to "The Sons of Mistletoe" there is another side which unless you are one of those people who pick up on passing comments will be surprised by. To be honest it didn't take a genius to see where this surprise side was going but without giving anything away it added a welcome sub plot to the movie which made it more than just a very obvious and unoriginal Christmas Movie trading on one story.
Now here is the thing about "The Sons of Mistletoe" it does have this nice story as well as a nice cast with George Newbern and Roma Downey working well together in an easy going manner, but throughout the movie I felt there was something missing. There was a Christmassy shop window, there was the house with Christmas lights on it, there was a general Christmassy feel about the whole movie except there was no snow. Now there was a reason because this is one of those movies where miracle of miracles it snows at the end but it makes it feel slightly wrong during the build up and it is the lack of snow which stops it from completely charming you.
What this all boils down to is that "The Sons of Mistletoe" is an entertaining little Christmas movie which on one hand has a highly predictable storyline but on the other has a surprising one as well. It isn't by any strect of the imagination a great Christmas movie but compared to some Christmas cheese fests which are out there it is pretty good.
Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Christmas Movies
