‘Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story’ is a bubbly blitz of sports-tinged sappiness, which was the point
CNN
Holiday movies – what a gift.
“Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” Hallmark’s snow-packed Swiftie-bait about two people looking to score, was at times about fruitcake as much as football, which was appropriate for this oddly sweet and sometimes confounding confection of a film. But unlike fruitcake, this is what the people want. The low-stakes syrup that blankets this short stack of a love story — in this case, between Chiefs fan Alana (Hunter King) and Derrick (Tyler Hynes), director of fan engagement for the team — is why they keep making these holiday tales that draw their pathos from the same TJ Maxx home decor signs that hang in your aunt’s bathroom. Does the movie have anything to do with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, the two humans whose courtship has made people outside of Kansas City care about Kansas City and football? Barely. Kelce’s mom makes a cameo and delivers one wink-nod quip. Other than that, this story belongs to us, the viewers who order their movies like they order their fast food say, “Yes, I’ll take extra cheese.” Our story begins with Alana, who has a history with Kansas City and with the Chiefs that goes back literal generations: Her parents met because their families had season tickets and were seated next to each other growing up. Soon, Alana will take over her family’s Chiefs-themed store, which sits on an adorable street populated by other small businesses, including one run by a well-meaning woman who makes an apparently putrid fruitcake for the ungrateful family every year. Derrick moved around a lot as a kid, including a stint living in Paris, but at one point tells Alana that he has never put down roots anywhere. She politely does not mention that he sounds extremely Canadian. They meet each other because Derrick has been rightfully maligned by his co-workers for not getting to know the fanbase well enough since moving into town and is encouraged to go connect with The People. If Derrick’s co-workers are basically telling him that he’s bad at his job, it goes over his head and he decides to go eat some Kansas City BBQ.
