We all know you bear in mind the images seen on the ‘gram: Chad Michael Murray, shirtless, cowboy-hatted, and doing a physique roll. Maybe you screen-shotted them, too. Alas, regardless of how excited you could be for Murray’s resurgence as a Hollywood hunk (which is ready to peak with subsequent summer season’s long-awaited “Freaky Friday″ sequel, “Freakier Friday,”) it’s not sufficient to make his newest function “The Merry Gents” even sizzle.
“The Merry Gents” opens with a not-so-merry lady, Ashley (Britt Robertson), an growing older Jingle Belle dancer. The pseudo-Rockette is given the boot by her boss, and proper earlier than the large vacation season. That’s how Ashley finally ends up again in her hometown, the place she’s promptly deemed “metropolis woman” for ditching the Huge Apple.
It’s there the place Ashley runs into Luke (Murray), the native bar proprietor and handyman who — because of Ashley’s suggestion — additionally now moonlights as a shirtless dancer. Seeing his abs evokes Ashley to make a pivot of her personal, as she determines to stage an all-male, Christmas-themed revue; if she will’t be one of many dancers on the most important stage, she would possibly as properly develop into a choreographer on a small one.
Now, it might make extra sense if Ashley’s profession had been thwarted as a result of an damage reasonably than her age. The “Girlboss” alum Robertson isn’t previous by any means, and a reclamation of her profession post-recovery would give “The Merry Gents” some much-needed oomf. As an alternative, this half-hearted “Soiled Dancing” riff tries to spin some vacation cheer from a narrative that’s absent any stakes. The movie‘s solely correct battle arises when Ashley is requested to return to her former dance firm, a predictable “twist” that additional confirms the undertaking’s “barely too sexy for the Hallmark Channel” ethos. Will our heroine depart her new love and return to the large evil metropolis, or will she choose her isolating profession over her hometown group?
The higher query is, can we care? And the reply is “no.” We’re right here for the sight of a bare-chested and suspender-clad Murray dramatically asking if his fellow dancer will assist deliver Santa’s sleigh tonight as a part of a routine. Netflix’s watered-down tackle “Magic Mike” might not get any randier than that, however there’s no denying the spectacle of all of it.
As a vacation rom-com, nonetheless, “The Merry Gents” is sorely missing the flicker and luxury that’s present in so many different current vacation films prefer it, together with Lindsay Lohan’s “Falling for Christmas,” which cemented Murray’s “Freak Friday” co-star because the queen of Netflix rom-coms. (Peter Sullivan directs from a script by actress Marla Sokoloff, who hails from the cable world, the place she beforehand starred in and directed Lifetime movies like “Christmas Lodge” and “Mixing Christmas.”)
Beth Broderick is a standout, largely for nostalgic functions. And it’s actually saying one thing when probably the most peppy and heartfelt scenes in “The Merry Gents” come from the grandmother character. Murray and Robertson really feel drained as leads, and whereas Murray is making it work onstage, the extra typical scenes all really feel like they’re lacking some vacation spice (amongst different issues). At the least this film is fairly to take a look at, which is greater than you possibly can say about most Netflix Originals.
Score: D+
“The Merry Gents” begins streaming Friday, November 20 on Netflix.
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