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| Mario Lopez falls head-over-heels for his captor. |
'Holiday in Handcuffs' starts off with a bang - Its a wintery night and a car is creeping down a wooded back road, driven by Melissa Joan Hart (MJH from now on, sorry, no idea about her character's name). Her narration teases us with one of those, "I never would have imagined I'd spend Christmas Eve doing this," lines. Classic setup. I'm already hooked.
She comes upon a shadowy figure tromping through the bleak wilderness - its Mario Lopez. Yes! She tells him to get in the car, reminds him how many miles they are from anywhere, and after a bit of bickering he eventually relents and gets in, but clearly they're in some kind of a fight. "Hold on," says MJH's narration, "Let me go back to the beginning..." (or something like that... sorta making that part up.)
This movie has an insane plot setup. In a nutshell, MJH is stood up by her shitty boyfriend the day they're supposed to trek out to her parents cabin for Christmas. She sees the dapper Lopez, kidnaps him at gunpoint, and drives him to the middle of the woods to pretend to be her beau. I watched in awe, giddily devouring each uncomfortable development, practically eating my whole fist at the awkwardness.
The best part is that although it's pretty disturbing at its core, in the fairy tale Christmas-land presented by holiday TV, kidnapping is treated as if its some quirky character flaw, like being messy or biting your nails. Lopez definitely under-reacts to the whole situation. Actually, he smirks his way through this whole movie, never lifting a finger to help out MJH, whose chops are razor sharp, playing the crazed but lovable kidnapper. But does anyone really care if Mario Lopez is anything more than Mario Lopez? He's a brand of his own, a television staple, and it's refreshing to not have to deal with one of those nondescript brooding hunks that we're normally forced to endure in these female-centric holiday movies.
Once the unlikely pair arrive at the cabin, MJH comes up with a great work-around to convince her parents that the unwilling Lopez is her boyfriend - she tells them he likes to pretend to be someone else for a laugh. Ah MJH, you've foiled Lopez again!! The parents buy it hook, line, and sinker and guffaw their way through Lopez's desperate plea for rescue. He eventually runs outside screaming for help, only to have his echo bounce off the unflinching frozen hillside.
Lopez makes a few more half-hearted attempts to get away or call for help, but it's clear that he's not really taking his situation seriously. Yes, I mean the felony kidnapping situation. Not one to rock the boat, he begrudgingly participates in the family's holiday events and mopes around the house, looking mildly put out. It's like getting snowed in somewhere, if you were snowed in by a psychotic person with a gun. But let's throw believability out the window on this one. Finally Lopez borrows the cell phone of MJH's brother and reaches his bitchy, shallow fiancee and tells her to alert the police. Once his rescue is assured, Lopez concocts the absurd plan to pretend to be the best boyfriend ever, to really put salt in the wound when the family finds out about the kidnapping. Don't ask me how that doesn't reflect strangely on him, but, hey, it was fun to watch.
The movie wraps up with some full-blown Stockholm Syndrome - Lopez falls for MJH and her kooky family, realizes money isn't everything (forgot to mention he's the VP of his daddy's company), ends up not pressing charges once the swat team busts in and arrests the whole family, and, in a rare appearance by the romantic February holiday, proposes to MJH on Valentine's Day. The implausible plot, extremely watchable MJH, and smirking Lopez definitely make this fun movie an Elf List recommend.
NSM - Non-Santa Movie
CC - Christmas Crime
IVD - Inclusion of Valentines Day
EL - Elf List*
Settling my brain for a long winter's nap,
Emile Elf
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