To explain “The Merry Gents” as “The Full Monty” meets a Christmas-themed Hallmark film may be overselling the products. Nevertheless, that’s primarily the elevator pitch for this function, by which a big-city dancer returns to her small city to save lots of her dad and mom’ live performance venue by having hunks go shirtless on stage. But director Peter Sullivan and author/co-star Marla Sokoloff’s providing within the Netflix Vacation Cinematic Universe is uninventive, uninspired and introduced with noticeably sloppy wrapping. Not solely does the story flail looking for its footing after a well-presented first act, a number of the extra cost-conscious points detract from the image’s significant, understated sentiments.
Single, 30-something Ashley (Britt Robertson) resides the dream, excessive kicking and faucet dancing in The Jingle Belles Christmas Revue and recouping from reveals in her picturesque condominium in New York Metropolis. Recently, although, she’s feeling just a little out of step with the remainder of the corporate. Simply when a brand new member joins the troupe, Ashley is named into her boss’ workplace and unceremoniously let go, as she pointedly voices, attributable to her advancing age. Discovering herself washed up far too younger and determined for a recharge, Ashley hightails it dwelling for the vacations to snow-covered Sycamore Creek, situated in an unspecified Midwestern state by means of a poorly disguised Burbank backlot.
Ashley’s arrival is met with a heat welcome all throughout city, from the greasy spoon diner her older sister Marie (Sokoloff) owns to live-music-bar The Rhythm Room, the place she clumsily pratfalls into cute carpenter Luke’s (Chad Michael Murray) life. The opening-in-the-wall, owned by Ashley’s big-hearted dad and mom Stan (Michael Gross) and Lily (Beth Broderick), was as soon as host to rock-and-rollers and royalty (a sensible nod to “The Princess Change”). Nevertheless, it’s now dwelling to barfly Danny (Maxwell Caulfield) and a stack of comically-large-stamped past-due payments. Going through eviction and $30,000 in debt, Ashley launches an all-male revue to rescue the institution, roping in the one native males she is aware of: Marie’s husband Rodger (Marc Anthony Samuel), bartender Troy (Colt Prattes) and Luke, who can’t resist these in want, particularly Ashley.
To the narrative’s detriment, the movie doesn’t stray removed from the secure confines of outdated formulation, whereby a metropolis dweller finds love in a small city and workaholics are chided for selecting a profession over love. These filmmakers have to step up their recreation in the event that they need to hold alongside smarter-constructed shared universe titles like “A Fort For Christmas” and, most lately, “Sizzling Frosty.” Confounding parts proliferate the image, largely coping with character behaviors and conditions that both pressure credulity (just like the Santa photo-op nonetheless operating previous the bar’s closing time) or result in extra questions than solutions. Why would Marie cover her relationship previous with a male stripper from Rodger, when he’s greater than keen to doff his high in entrance of a gaggle of screaming ladies?
Social media exists on this world, as TikTok is talked about in an early scene, however no one makes use of it in any respect to assist fill the membership with patrons. Certainly Ashley’s dancing profession would’ve assured she had an account and a wholesome fan following. As an alternative, she and Marie move out flyers within the city sq. and watch for journalists to select up their story. That’s positive for a film happening earlier than smartphones had been invented, however not for one set on this tech-heavy period. Plus, it’s odd that the movie takes nice pains to be extraordinarily heteronormative, displaying no male patrons attending these occasions (excluding the one man working the A/V board). It pays no thoughts to the potential LGBTQ+ viewers watching, when it might’ve seized a possibility to be as progressive and inclusive as others within the rising Netflix Vacation Cinematic Universe (“Single All of the Approach” and “Falling For Christmas”).
Every of the routines is given an aesthetic identification, with Sullivan conducting a refrain of advanced choreography, saturated stage lighting, music-video-style modifying and costumes starting from a development employee to a Chippendale dancer. The novices showcase their six packs as they physique roll to an aggressively generic soundtrack (curiously all licensed from the manufacturing firm’s personal secure of music artists). Nonetheless, these numbers really feel like reductive, forgettable iterations of these in “Magic Mike.” They may make aged audiences blush, however provided that kin are round.
There are highlights. Sullivan and Sokoloff pay respectful homage to their cinematic inspiration within the first montage, displaying the blokes’ infectious love of dance crossing over to their every day lives — cooking on the grill, storing a toolbox and making cocktails. Sturdy anti-corporate messaging is tucked away within the margins, from Marie’s motivation for purchasing the diner to the combat to maintain the venue from a juice bar takeover. Lens flares middle viewers within the characters’ psyches, whether or not it’s when our heroine experiences an epiphany or when the narrative’s emotional drive ramps up.
The members of the ensemble elevate the flawed materials as greatest they’ll. Robertson makes for an ideal main woman, delivering a slapstick-y tumble as effectively as she accesses vulnerability to make her protagonist’s arc empathetic. Murray is, in fact, charming, including sizzle and verve to the proceedings. In the case of tertiary supporting gamers, Caulfield is a blessed casting selection, along with his presence reinforcing the theme of reinvention. In any case, he performed a bookish nerd-turned-biker in “Grease 2” and seductive pop star Rex Manning in “Empire Data.” Right here, he steals the highlight.
Sentiments surrounding ladies unearthing hidden reserves of resilience, persevering and thriving of their second-life profession selections are assuredly heartening — maybe one thing Sokoloff herself skilled mixing appearing together with her work behind the digital camera, writing and directing different movies. Nonetheless, the predictable climactic battle undoes the groundwork beforehand laid with these feminist notions, inserting a finer level on romance as a substitute of self-worth. Had the filmmakers developed from the anticipated to the surprising, this vacation romp would’ve been extra merry and vibrant.
