Don’t get it twisted, Hallmark’s new Christmas movie Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story has nothing to do with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce – aside from the fact that millions of non-football fans now know that the Kansas City Chiefs are, in fact, a team, thanks to their relationship. The fact is, the NFL partnered up with Hallmark to produce this movie about a Chiefs superfan who falls for a guy who works for the team’s front office and given how hot the team is both in the gossip pages and on the gridiron, it’s kind of a genius ploy to attract viewers to this new romance that’s also a genuinely wonderful holiday film.
Opening Shot: The movie begins with old home movie footage of two different families at Christmas and a voice over explaining, “For my entire life, whenever someone asks me to describe my family, I tell them, we’re what happens when you mix Christmas, fate and football.” From the home movie footage, we learn that two families gifted their children season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs one year back in the 1960s. These families, strangers up to that point, met when it turned out their seats were next to each other at the stadium. Year after year, they attended gamed and grew closer, until one year, when their children were grown, the son of one family married the daughter of the other. And our narrator, Alana (Hunter King), is the product of that marriage. Were it not for the Chiefs, she wouldn’t exist.
The Gist: Alana Higman is gearing up to take over her family’s store, a Kansas City Chiefs fan shop called K.C. Corner, from her parents, Hank and Leah, played by Diedrich Bader and Megyn Price. This shop happens to be right down the road from her grandparents’ (Christine Ebersole and Richard Riehle) barbecue joint, Norma and Nic’s. One day, Derrick Taylor (Tyler Hines), the Chiefs’ director of fan engagement who’s relatively new in town, is given a tip by his coworker to try the best barbecue in the city at Norma and Nic’s, and when he does, he’s introduced to Alana’s entire family – and Donna Kelce in a cameo as a restaurant employee – who warmly welcome him to the place (and try to set Derrick up with Alana). Alana and Derrick do hit it off, and they start hanging out, and that’s when Alana and her family tell Derrick about the magical hat.
Yes, this film has a magical hat.
As Derrick browses Alana’s shop, he spies a knit cap on display beneath a glass case, and Alana’s grandpa Paul (Ed Begley Jr.) explains that a Salvation Army Santa gifted him the hat in 1969, and when Paul wore it that Christmas, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 1970. The hat was then lost for 50 years, and when it was rediscovered around Christmas of 2019, Paul wore it again on Christmas and the team won the Super Bowl again in 2020 after a 50 year drought. The family legend, which they all take very seriously, is that the Chiefs can’t make it to the Super Bowl unless a family member wears the magic hat. (There are rules to the hat though; wearing it will only get the Chiefs to the Super Bowl, it doesn’t guarantee a win. “We gotta leave something up to the players, right?” Grandpa Nic says. This plot about the magic hat is completely wild and unexpected and I love it.)
Derrick has his doubts about this whole mythology, and the family is distressed by that. They literally kick him out of the store for being a non-believer in the hat and assume they’ll never see him again… if only that were the case. Because Alana has submitted the store to be considered for the Chief’s Fan of the Year Award, a distinction that is being judged by… Derrick.
Pretty soon, Derrick returns to their store and reveals his job and his role as a judge in the Fan of the Year contest. The family forgives him for his cynicism and pretty soon Alana, her parents and grandparents are inviting Derrick to their family dinners and hanging out because they just genuinely like him. And with his support, they win the Fan of the Year award and are rewarded with tickets to the Christmas Day game. By this point, all of Kansas City had heard about the lore of the magic hat, and just days before the game, the hat goes missing. Alana is so distraught that the hat is missing she nearly misses the game, until at the last minute, a Salvation Army Santa hands her and Grandpa Paul the missing hat and all is right with the world.
Our Take: Not Ed Begley Jr. making me cry on more than one occasion in this film! This is not what I expected from A Chiefs Love Story!
I came into Holiday Touchdown assuming this would be a run of the mill romance, but this movie has it all [Stefon voice]: a hat that changes the course of sports history, a cat in a wig that’s named Catrick Mahomes, and a time-traveling Santa Claus. There are so many silly, fun, and often heartfelt touches throughout this whole movie, and it’s so much more than just a romance about two Chiefs fans, it’s a story about the relationship between Alana, her parents, and her grandparents and the team that they owe their family bond to.
So you’re probably wondering why Ed Begley made me weepy, and I’ll tell you, the man is the linchpin of this operation. Begley, as Alana’s widowed Grandpa Paul, is the original owner of this magical hat, and its lore originated with him. But he’s also the one character, the magical grandpa if you will, who has the special bond with Alana, the reassuring, philosophical elder she depends on for advice, but he’s tinged with a bit of sadness, having struggled with his health and the death of his wife. So when Derrick surprises Grandpa Paul with a pair of stadium seats – the very seats he and his wife sat in when they had their season tickets, Begley’s performance brings this movie to a whole different level. It’s no longer a romance between the two young actors but a wistful reflection on loss, grief, and how passing along family traditions keeps the spirit of loved ones alive. (And yeah, if you want to root for Alana to Derrick to get together so they can pass along those traditions, cool.)
I went into Holiday Touchdown pretty cold, not knowing what to expect (though I was aware of the numerous cameos throughout, from Donna Kelce to coach Andy Reid to Jenna Bush Hager and like a dozen other players and Chiefs-adjacent personalities). The cast absolutely elevates the film (and I’m not just talking about the cameos, but the entire cast is high caliber and cast perfectly) and though the plot lies somewhere in between silly superstition and magical realism, it never really asks you to suspend your disbelief of the absurd the way that, say, the plot of Hot Frosty does. If you have any preconceived notions that this movie is supposed to be a Taylor-Travis allegory, or is simply a marketing ploy to promote the NFL, I can report that by the end of the film, both of those thoughts will be the furthest thing from your mind and instead, I promise you will have given in completely to the magic of that damn hat.
Parting Shot: Derrick and Alana, sit in her family’s seats at the Chiefs Christmas Day game. He kisses her on the cheek as Grandpa Paul sits nearby holding his treasured, magical hat in his hands.
Performance Worth Watching: I mean, where to begin? Broadway legend Christine Ebersole eats up every scene she’s in, and would probably be my top pick for breakout performance were it not for the fact that Ed Begley Jr. is the heart of the film and plays his role as a vulnerable but wise old grandpa with a tenderness that shifts the whole vibe of the movie.
Memorable Dialogue: “Okay, here’s what we gotta do: put some flour on Alana’s cheek, and then Derrick will have to remove it gently. It’s in all the Christmas movies. It never fails,” Grandma Norma says, conspiring to get Alana and Derrick together as they bake together in her restaurant’s kitchen. She’s clearly a woman who knows of what she speaks. But restaurant manager Donna Kelce Played By Donna Kelce interrupts and says, “Don’t force it, ladies. Just let it happen. Trust me on this one.”
Our Call: STREAM IT! Usually when a movie like this one comes to an end, there’s a satisfaction in knowing that everyone got their happy ending. But Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story ended, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more to watch. The actors, the script, and the whimsical, silly, but also moving plot were an absolutely winning team.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
Read the full article here
