*Get "Holiday in Handcuffs" on Amazon here*
*Get Melissa Explains It All: Tales from My Abnormally Normal Life by Melissa Joan Hart on Amazon here*
Despite the title, NOT an adult film, and oh, how the mighty have fallen! I don't mean the medium-name cast, I'm talking about director Ron Underwood, who helmed the cult classic "Tremors," as well as "City Slickers," "Heart and Souls," "Speechless," "Mighty Joe Young," and, oh, yeah..."The Adventures of Pluto Nash"...okay, I understand now.
Melissa Joan Hart plays a quirky artist Trudie, whose jerk Wall Street boyfriend (this film is VERY anti-Wall Street, anti-capitalism, etc.) breaks up with her. She kidnaps David (Mario Lopez), who has his own awful but rich girlfriend, and presents him as her beau at the family gathering at a conveniently isolated cabin in the woods. Assorted family secrets eventually come out, as Trudie and David grow closer. June Lockhart fails miserably in the wild grandma role probably written for Betty White, and the plot is preposterous and predictable. Hart has a few funny scenes, but unless you've never seen a Hallmark Channel film before (this debuted on the old ABC Family Channel, hence it's mild edginess), this can run dull.
