Final Ratings and Christmas Traditions

Kitty. A great story, like Monsters Inc., stays with you forever. And Disney Plus is where you'll find your next great story. From the return of the award-winning hit series Rivals. Welcome to the naughtyest show on television. To the unmissable crime drama high potential. Got a dead body, gotta go. A lifetime of great stories awaits. This spring on Disney Plus .18 Plus Subscription Required. T's and Cs apply . It's the most wonderful time booking heroes. On the beach does well more than beach holidays. We now offer millions of combinations of beach holidays, city breaks, and cruises. So whether you fancy swimming, sightseeing, or sitting on the top deck of a ship, we've got you covered. So stop booking around and whatever your next holida y looks like, get searching at on the beach.co.uk. Abturn at all protected. On the beach. Ho ho ho hello and welcome back to Bahumbug, the Christmas movies podcast that can't think of anything more Christmassy than stealing from a ship , apparently. Hello, everybody. I'm Helen O'Hara. I am your host, and I am here today to be talking about Jingle Bell Heist, the new Netflix Romantic comedy Crime Caper, I guess, which stars Olivia Holt and Connor Swindles. And joining me to discuss it today is a man who knows more about Christmas than Santa Claus himself. It's Amon Warman. How are you doing, Amon? I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. How are you? I am okay. I am so ready to stop and just lounge for Christmas. I am not saying I'm flying on fumes, but it's pretty close. How about you? Almost in Christmas mode. There's a couple of things yet to do this week. By the end of this week I should be fully in Christmas mode. The tree is up, the presents have not been bought yet, because I'm a very last minute guy. Oh wow, you are living on the edge. I know, I know. It's bad. Shockingly , is December 16th as we record this. Normally I would have heard the Mariah Carey Christmas song multiple times for some reason this year I have not it is extremely weird. It is. I would have heard it in the w ild all the time. Yeah. I have not heard it this year. I don't know what is going on. It's a bit freaky. Maybe that is like the universe's punishment for not having done your Christmas shopping yet. Like it is denying you the great pleasure of all I want for Christmas. That's why. Maybe maybe. Maybe. So we're here today to talk about Jingle Bell Heist, which, as I said, stars Olivia Holtz, Sophia. She is a young woman working two jobs and also committing small thefts to look after her mum who has cancer. So that's okay then, question mark. And she comes under into contact with Nick, played by Connor Swindells. He's working in a security store, but he has let's say history with a department store where she works, Sterlings, which is run by Peter Serafinovich, who is married to Lucy Punch in this. And basically the two of them concoct a plan to steal the store over Christmas and finally set their lives on the right path again for reasons that I don't want to go into too much initially but we may well get into during the program. O cofurse as always on Baham Bug, we do get into spoilers. So if you're very concerned about spoilers in your silly Christmas movies, I do suggest you go watch them and then come back and we'll talk about them some more. Amon, overall, what did you think of this? Good, bad, and different ? I am somewhere in the middle of all of that with this film. I think it's pass able. I think it's fine. I'm using words like that. It's likable enough, like the leads are likable enough on their own. I think the plotting just about works. It's not very sophisticated, but it just about works. It's one of those films where there's enough elements of it that do work that you wish that more of it had been tightened up so it would be go from something that's merely passable and fine to something genuinely good and gre at. And aside from some in admittedly inspired twists in the final act, I think the mode that it plays in for much of the movie is just aggressive three-star possible fine. You know what? I was just looking up the film's Wikipedia page to have it handy in front of me and being able to check on people's character names and so on. And I came across the summary on its IMDB page, which says Jingle Bellhoist is a harmless piece of Netflix content that's designed to be enjoyable in an undemanding fashion. And 100% . I mean that I've never seen anything more damned with faint praise, I don't think, than that. But I mean look, I I had a nice time with it in the sense that I think like yourself, I went in with extremely low expectations. Partly to be fair to everyone involved because I hadn't looked up who was involved. I want to say that. It's not because of the people who made this, it's not even because of the cast or anything like that. It's just because of the look of it and I'll be honest, the name. And compared to those very low expect ations, you know, I thought it it outperformed those. And that is mostly because it had a little bit of British Christmas movie kind of grit to it. There's a slightly different energy, I think, to it. You know, this feels like people who actually live in a version of London that I recognize somewhat. They live with flatmates. They live in non-photogenic houses. They, you know, worry about getting treatment on the NHS. It's not completely removed. It's not in some love actually or some sleepless in Seattle kind of fantasy world. And I appreciate that. I also did like the last act, and we will get to that, I think, in a little bit because I think it's really key to this. Um but also like there's a lot of quite first base silly comedy on the way, which is kind of surprising because this script was on the blacklist. This script was quite talked about. Yeah, yeah, I would agree. It's just a little too first base, and I was saying like if they just tightened up a few elements, I think where you can really tell that it needed a little bit more was in there's a couple of scenes that some seduction is involved, and they fall a little bit flat on a humor level, on a seduction level. We just wanted a little bit more than what the actors and the what script was giving you. So yeah, again, I feel like I'm going to repeat myself a couple of times on this, but like tightening up. Just tighten it up. Yeah, it's it is close here. So this is directed by Michael Fimig Fim Fimignari , I apologise if I pronounced that wrong, who was a cinematographer who worked a lot with Mike Flanagan, for example, and has now turned director in the last few years, has been doing other Netflix films, did some of the to All the Boys I've Love Before sequel spin-offs. So like at this point I feel like knows what he's doing, is is getting his his feet under him as a director. And as I said, it's written by Abby McDonald, who has a lot of books behind her has also worked on Bridgerton in the staff, in the story editor and staff writer role. So, you know, good people there behind the camera. I enjoyed a lot of the cast, you know. Lucy Punch, I think, is really, really funny. Peter Sarafinovitz is always good value. I thought Michael Salami was really charming as his flatmate. You know, good people in this. It's just it just felt like it wasn't quite sharp enough and like it was maybe pulling its punches or maybe it's that Netflix thing where they're trying to speak to people who aren't really paying attention to what's going on screen and are looking at their phone and having to explain everything that's happening. I was literally about to bring up second screen syndrome, which is what this film is absolutely giving you. But yeah, I agree with all the actors you list there, they add so much to characters who aren't really with written that well. Michael Salami as Ral ph is a particular example of that. I w did does it does this kind of have one page of description? I don't know. Maybe half a page, but he adds so much personality to that. And I like that. Again, there's a lot of really good elements here. I feel like one of the themes in this is about class and about the haves and the have nots, but that is not nearly as pronounced as it could have been to really impact the film. And like you, I like Peter Sarafanovich a lot. But he is not given, I don't think, the dialogue and the screen time to really make that character as hateable as he perhaps should be. And he's a really, really good actor. And he does what he can with what he's got, but it's not quite enough to just take it over the top. Yeah, and I feel like it's maybe it verges what we get it verges on kind of cartoon villain. Yeah. You know, with really no redeeming creatures. I cannot stress this enough. He is a bad guy. He was nicer as a zombie, quite frankly, than this. And I think that's fine. And I that can be good, but then I think that works better for a slightly younger skewing film than the rest of this is because that would work in a sort of kids' caper movie. And even could work in this case, Connors Windel's character is a dad and you know, there's an adorable kid there at times to be ad orable, you know. But it doesn't feel like that's the energy this is going for. Nick is a real guy with real problems and he is this feels like it's aimed at the 20-something Gen Z crowd who are struggling with their own economic issues. And look, there is a satisfaction a little bit in seeing two young people get some in get some of what's theirs in a film like this. But I didn't think that it was quite developed enough. Like you say, not get some in that way. Come on. Come on. This is a family plan. You needed to clarify what you meant by that. And you're lucky this is just me because if you were with James and Chris, they would have been on that like a flash and you would not be able to get even three words after that sentence. It is true. I apologize to all listeners. I apologize. But yeah, it's just not quite there. I think you're right. But let's talk about really spoilery stuff now, because I did enjoy those spoilers. I did enjoy where this film went. So because we'd already potentially talked about talking about this, and then and I was sitting the whole way through the film going, Oh my god, Amon is going to go on a rant about these characters, about their life choices, about the fact that they are turning to crime and they are bad people, and he will not forgive them for that, despite the sympathy of their situation. And then we get to the end of the film and we discover they have not technically stolen the things that we thought they were trying to steal. They have instead put things back to not even frame, but to exact justice. I would agree. I don't know where , you know, this thing about me being the mall police has now become one of my things and there's now okay. But I'll take it, it's fine. I don't know exactly how that happened, but okay. But yes, I did like that. I thought it was inspired. Everything with the safe and how they get into the safe and then she puts her finger like, oh wow, she is the daughter of Peter Sarah Brinovich. I did not see that coming at all. Probably should have because I've watched this twice now in preparation for this pod. And there are some hints in the film given to the how she acts when he's coming into the store and other stuff like that. Oh, there was something more here that they were setting up. So I really, really like that if i could get on my more high horse for just one second though there it is um because cynthia sterling ends up winning in a way. Like she takes control of Sterling's holdings and whatnot. And I get that she was the third wheel in the plot in the end and came up with the idea in the sense to put things back and fair play. But my sympathy for her , I don't have much because she recognized Nick. She has known what her husband has done, and she has chosen to do nothing. And for that, like the moral police in me is a bit like I'm not sure I feel entirely comfortable with the idea of you winning based on that. Because you knew exactly who your husband was. You've ch osen to stay with him, you've known what he's done, you've chosen to say nothing, and then you win at the end of the movie? I don't know about that. So I guess the idea was that she yes, married him. Not m let's be charitable, assume she didn't know when she married him how much of a monster he was. And then it was a choice between putting up with him or being penniless, which admittedly there is a right moral answer to that equation, but it's not an easy thing, I guess, to go from being rich to being penniless. So I suppose that's why we're supposed to forgive her. But y yeah, you're not wrong. That's fair, I think. She's she does end up coming out of it best and she is not the worst, but also not the second best. You know, she's not close to the top, I wouldn't say in this film. And we have to trust really, by the way, our heroes also have to trust that she means what she says when she says that she will sort them out. That is very much a leap of faith on their part that could have absolutely not paid off. Jingle bell highs two, Helen. You know it's gonna happen. What did you make of Olivia Holt and Connor Swindell's in this? Because I don't know if I've seen Connor Swindells in much, but Olivia Holt, I've been a fan of since Cloak and Dagger, which is a Marvel series. She plays Dagger in that, and because it was a Marvel thing, you know, I was duty bound to watch it. Naturally. And she brings a feistiness to that character. I've always been sort of impressed with her, I guess, since that. And I've watched her in a couple of things that she's in since. And she always brings a personality and a verb to her characters. And I felt that a little bit here. I did not, however, feel much heat between Connor and Olivia, which was a little bit of a problem at times. Yeah, I think it would have been better if one had. I didn't yeah, I didn't think they were like made for each other kind of sexual chemistry, but I appreciated it as a slow burn, I guess. I had actually probably seen him more recently than her 'cause I definitely saw him in William Tell last year. And I guess presumably in scoop as well. Although I didn't remember that. But he was really familiar to me. So I was kind of like, oh okay. I and I thought he did a good job of treading that line between being a total sad sack when we met him and also having a little bit of a spark to him and a little bit of a sense of oh, I can come up with a plan. I'm still a guy who's looking for something, even though I've been devastated by everything that's been done to me. So I thought that was kind of an interesting balancing act that he did. So yeah, quite liked them. And I think that's one of the reasons that I was sort of willing to put up with some of the sort of slightly more first base scenes in this movie, oh no, they're hiding from a person who's in the room kind of stuff, or oh no, they have the the old thing where you have to pretend st you're hearing stuff out of an earpiece and repeating whatever and the other person says. I would have preferred that scene if it had gone completely smoothly and they had been able to juggle the two conversations really cleverly. So everything knitted up. I thought that because that's what they started to do for a couple of minutes in that scene. I was like, oh I like this. This is very pleasing. This is very clever. And then this is what I mean by tightening up the script. Like a punch up in that scene in particular could have been work wonders. But the first time I talked to you about this was weeks ago now, you we were talking about the scene. I'm just happy that the film called them on them not being very good at this rather than have a see them not being very good at this and then just kind of ignore it. That was like that was that was actually a pleasant twist to me. It's like, oh no, I'm gonna call you on this and then I'm gonna join you in your heist. Like that was very, very good because my goodness, it was so clumsy. It was so obvious. I'm like the characters would be immediately undermin ed by just going along with this and not calling them out on it because it was that because it because it was that comes so that actually we're gonna say because it was an intentionally bad I like that. And the fact that they stayed a little bit amateurish the whole way through was also quite satisfying to me. Like even their getaway, they've clearly planned everything, but they don't have millions and millions of backup plans. They don't have lots and lots of contingenci es, you know, they sort of s muddle through. And even when they're making that b big decision of oh, you go, I can take the fall, and it doesn't quite work out that way. But but I thought that was clever. You believed that okay, these guys have gotten this far, but they haven't really thought it the whole way through. They have twelve percent of a plan to put it in Marvel terms again, you know? And that was kind of fun. Yeah. Danny Ocean, they are not. They are not Danny Oce an, no. And I do have to say, me being me, the score was not working for me. No. Daniel Pemberton, the composer, is not. It just felt overbearing. It did not feel in lost step with the the film. I think brass feels out of place. It feels like sub ocean's eleven in the score in a lot of ways for me. It was not working. Oh, that's a shame. I mean, presumably brass, they're going for like a Christmassy feel there, right? But this is yeah, yeah. But this is a heist movie. I don't know. The instrumentation choices did not work for me, generally. You wanted something a bit jazzier, a bit more kind of a little bit jazzier a little bit . I will give the film bonus points for Christmas and Hollis run the MC needle drop. That was great. That's always fun. It's immediately bop my head to that track because it is a banger. And original original recordings as well always get a bonus point on especially on Netflix and Hallmark and all those where we sometimes get very dodgy spin-offs. I do wanna say in the composer's defense it is apparently his feature scoring debut. Steve Hackman, who's a com conductor, com composer, producer, arranger, singer, songwriter. So only ways up then as far as you're concerned. But but yeah, good luck to him next time. Yeah. I look, like I say, maybe it's because I just went in with zero expectation , but at least they met that. My my biggest notes as and you know me were the department store didn't look big enough. I liked the space. You know, I liked the space that they had. Like it was cool. It was an interesting building. They'd gone for some real kind of personality. But uh there wasn't a sense that there was much there, was there? Oh this is the most Helen O'Hara notes that ever Helen O Harvard notes. Production design matters, and I know you're operating on a budget for something like this. And I appreciate that they went for personality but I did want a bit more like sense of there being an upstairs to this place that's all it is incredible I don't know how is not it didn't look Christmassy enough, it wasn't big enough. Change that. Well, no, it did look Christmassy enough. I want to give them credit for that. The Christmas decor was I thought spot on. And you got the sense of like big department store, lots of money being spent, and then also ordinary people's houses, small little tree in the corner. Maybe they've got a bigger branch five minutes away, Helen. But this is where the boss is based. Even the smallest London department store. Let's take a Fortnums, right? That there is more space than that than there was in this. That's all I'm saying. Okay. I'll take your word for it. You have much more experience in this area than perhaps anyone on earth. Well you haven't even done your shopping yet. You've probably not been in a department store. Yeah. Still all to come. All right. So let's rank this for Christmassiness. What are you going to give this film out of five ? For Christmass in ess . I'm gonna give it a full for Christmasiness because as you mentioned, the decor is very, very Christmassy. And we didn't mention it, but in the the end credits consist of our heroes around the table having dinner with families and whatnot. That felt very Christmassy to me. And just the overall vibe how the film concludes, as we've mentioned, with justice rather than getting it for yourself. And I felt that energy actually all the way through, like there's a line that Sophia has, everything I want is for her, her being her mother. Yeah. And obviously Collins Windell's like his love for his daughter is very, very apparent. And I do think one thing that they did do successfully on the script level was show Sophia falling for Nick based on her watching him interact with his daughter, given all the baggage that she has with father daughter stuff. I thought exactly what yeah, I agree with that. I think that was really nice. And And the fact that yes, he's not out for riches, actually. He's out just to rebuild the life that he had. He wants to clear his name for his daughter's sake as much as his own, you get the impression. It's not just a cheap sort of leave me my name, kind of the crucible thing. It's uh I want my daughter to be able to be proud of me, which is a very sweet kind of motivation. Yeah, I think you know, four is maybe on the generous side, might be a three point five, but it's Christmas. It can be generous at Christmas. We can do we can do point fives here. Okay . You gotta let me know the rules before. Oh well, you know. Okay. And then Mark's out of five for this as a movie. This is a three. This could not be anything . This is aggressively three. Yeah, that's probably fair. Look, I had a nice time and I liked everybody involved coming out of this but it's hard to justify going any higher than that I think. Yeah, let's say a three then for Jingle Bell Heist, which is on Netflix now. If you haven't seen it already, check it out. Amon . First of all, couple of questions I ask everybody. I have to check if your answers remain the same. Your favorite Christmas movie, the one you have to watch every year. It's between Homeland and diehard. If the kids are around, obviously it's home alone. It's diehard, yeah. Sorry. One day, Helen, one day my nieces and nephews will be old enough to be like, you know what? Kids, let me introduce you to die hard it will be a momentous day but we are not quite there yet that's no me neither we are counting down the Christmases here in my house too so yes home alone the answer to that although we're probably not gonna go that way this year. Sister Act is very much on the brain right now. Sister Act and Sister Act 2. Correct. And yeah, I feel like Sister Act 2 would go hard in the womanho Joyful, joyful. Absolutely. All right. And then any Christmas traditions that were unusual in your house? Anything you have to eat or hang on the tree or open at a certain time or anything like that . My mum, for as long as I can remember, loves watching it used to be the Queen's speech, now it's the king's speech. So normally we go to church, come back, cook, and the food is more or less just about ready as the king speech this year we'll be playing we watch the King's Beech, then we eat, then we open presents. We're very patient family. Yes. I know like Christmas Eve and do like person in the morning. We wait until after dinner to open presents. That is more self-control than I thought you had. That's pretty impressive. Wow. That's how we do it in the woman household. Wow. Okay. All right. Amon, if people want to hear more from you, where can they find you? If people want to hear me, they could listen to the Beta Black podcast, which we have new episodes every Saturday. We just recorded very early this week our final episode of the year. So yes, we have an interview with Erin Morton from Fallout, which Clarice was very, very happy to do. She's very big fan of that game. And reviewed Marty Supreme, Avatar, and Sentimental Value. Good week for movies. Yes, good movies and where else can you find me? I am a contributing editor to Empire magazine so I do various bits and bobs for them. You can find me on random episodes of the Empire podcasts, both regular and spoiler. I'm on TalkSport Radio. I'm doing things in print. I'm doing things online. I'm doing things on TV every now and then. As the kids say, Google me. Google him. All right. There you go. That is it. That is Christmas. And off to I'm sure commit no jingle bell heists whatsoever, but a certain amount of jingle bell last minute shopping. Amon Warman, thank you very much, and happy Christmas. Christmas to you. Peace, everyone.