The Case of the Christmas Diamond

From the opening credits, I knew this Christmas movie would be different: a cartoon Sherlock Holmes searching for clues with his spy glass. It's not your usual holiday romance because romance is only hinted at. It's a mystery and the characters are classic stereotypes which fit the table game they start to play, like Clue. There's the Detective, the Liar, the Lover, etc. Don't look for reality here - are holiday movies real anyway? The actors are having fun, campy fun and they want us to join in. The production values are good: lovely estate, nice costumes. If you want a break from all the holiday sugar, I recommend this one! Sit back and have fun.

The story may be typical for holiday TV movies but the acting is so amateur it seems like I'm watching a "who done it" mystery at a small local community theater. I can't count how many times I rolled my eyes at the lame facial expression's and stiff acting. I didn't bother to read the actors bios, but other than the Baldwin brother it seemed to me these were inexperienced actors. The writing was typical of a simple mystery and offered no real surprises. The best thing about the movie was the house the action was set in and the over the top Christmas decorations, also typical of holiday movies.

Look, we all know where ION movies sit in this hierarchy: a step down from Hallmark in terms of budget and actors, and usually even more saccharine. This was no exception, with OK (if stereotypical) acting all around, though rather extreme overacting on the part of the matriarch. The pretty protagonist had more personality than is usual for ION movies, even more than some Hallmark movies. The mystery itself was not bad, at least not guessable within 5 minutes. For me there was one real hole (small spoiler coming): the espresso machine was supposed to cause the power outage when she hit the brew button, but the main power draw in an espresso machine is the boiler element, and that would have already been on (you can't draw espresso from a machine you've just switched on); the power draw of the pump is minimal, around 100 Watts for a Nema motor driving a rotary pump. Also, this 'barista' only half-loaded the portafilter; she was planning to fill a small samovar from that? Picky, I know, but when they sourced a decent commercial espresso machine maybe they could have borrowed the dealer's expertise for a bit?