The Merry Gentlemen (2024)
The Merry Gentlemen is what happens when a typical formulaic Christmas movie has a head-on collision with The Full Monty, if The Full Monty had been rated TV-14 and doesn’t feature an actual Monty.
Yeah, it stinks, although it tries so, so hard, and not even Chad Michael Murray’s well-defined physique can save it. But we’ll get to that. In the meantime, snark is incoming.
Ashley is the principal dancer for a New York troupe called the Jingle Belles, who are basically like a Musak version of the Rockettes. She gets fired because the producers think she’s too old, which is laughable because she’s thirty-something if she’s a day and hardly at death’s door. There’s nothing for Ashley to do but go back to her apartment, curl up with a bowl of popcorn and watch The Christmas Prince (Yes, Netflix stops just short of promoting itself).
Since Ashley is out of a job and hasn’t been home to her picture-perfect town of Sycamore Creek in ages, she decides to visit her family for Christmas, where, lo and behold, her family’s club, The Rhythm Room, is in financial trouble and needs saving. Can Ashley, the savvy New York dancer, save it?
Yes. Yes, she can, with an all-male dance revue and the initially reluctant help of her brother-in-law and high school classmate, Rodger, the Rhythm Room’s hot bartender, Troy, and Luke, the dreamy handyman and carpenter her parents hired. When Ashley and her sister, Marie, notice the local cab driver has some sweet moves, he’s in, too. And The Rhythm Room’s resident barfly, Danny jumps in when Rodger sprains his ankle on some ice.
The ladies love the guys’ moves and the money pours in. Sparks fly between Luke and Ashley. There’s a montage of Ashley and her mom making a Buche de Noel cake, which comes out looking pretty scrumptious. There’s a reckoning, of course, if it can be called that, which I won’t spoil. Yeah, it’s predictable, but even a formulaic Christmas movie needs a modicum of dignity.
Especially a Christmas movie that stinks to high heaven as much as The Merry Gentleman. I’m really trying not to be mean here, but the whole thing smacks of desperation. The acting is awful, the story is clumsy, and it’s pretty boring in spite of the Gentlemen. Ashley’s mom looks like she wants to murder someone or at least stare them down. Michael Gross looks nervous the entire time. None of these characters seem to have any real rapport or inside jokes.
And again, Ashley is “too old” to be a principle dancer? Really? The Jingle Belles are hardly precision dancers, and their kickline is too slow to tax anyone.
Also, the romance between Luke and Ashley is hopelessly tacked on. The time between their meet-cute and the end of the movie is probably…what, a week? The least the movie could have done is made them childhood sweethearts or something, and that way there’s a history there. Otherwise, we’re limited to, “You’re here, you’re cute, we should be together.”
Speaking of slow and desperate, it’s funny that the Merry Gentlemen are able to go from non-dancers to what my son called “diet Chippendales” in a matter of days with seemingly no effort. I’m no dancer, but I performed for many years, and it takes at least a solid week of ten-hour days to get the basic semblance of a show down, including hours of choreography. These guys even do forward somersaults like it’s no big deal, which raises questions about where they’ve been all their lives.
Oh, and one of the songs the Gentleman dance to sounds suspiciously like Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” so much so that visions of copyright infringement dance in the head. Once it’s heard it can’t be unheard.
Groan.
The Merry Gentlemen is not without its charms, though. The fact that Danny leaps into action after doing nothing but crosswords at the bar for half the movie is pretty nice, especially considering he’s Maxwell Caufield and played jazz square-happy Rex Manning once upon a time. Glad to know he’s still got it.
And Chad Michael Murray can’t help but smoulder every time he’s onscreen. Hello, Tristan. Hello, Charlie. Hello, Lucas. You have aged very well.
Still, this movie is too distracting to have on in the background while decorating the tree or whatever is happening. It’s way too “What the actual heck?” for that.
The Merry Gentlemen is streaming on Netflix. Rated TV-14.
My grade: D+
Principal Cast: Britt Robertson, Chad Michael Murray, Marla Sokoloff, Marc Antony Samuel, Colt Prattes, Hector David, Jr., Maxwell Calfield, Michael Gross, Beth Broderick, Maria Canals-Barrera, Meredith Thomas, Rivkah Reyes, Dominique Domingo, Bella Shepard, Michael Gaglio, Katie Amanda Keane, Chuck Spitler, Adrian Gaeta.
Directed by Peter Sullivan.
Written by Jeffrey Schenck, Peter Sullivan, and Marla Sokoloff.
Hallmark got called out recently for certain staffers saying certain actresses had gotten "too old" in the same dismissive fashion. It could be meant as a satiric response to that.