CNN —
“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.
The eatery he chooses is owned by Alana’s grandparents and employs a sweet woman known to those watching as Donna Kelce, mother of Chiefs tight end Travis and former Philadelphia Eagle Jason. While there, Alana’s family promptly arranges a meet-cute and other romance-encouraging events, but Donna advises, “Don’t force it, ladies. Just let it happen. Trust me on this one.”
We see you, Donna.
“They’re very cute,” Derrick tells Alana at one point of her heavy-handed family.
“So are otters until they rip your face off,” she replies. (Let’s watch that movie next.)
The family loves Derrick and even lets him in on a piece of their family lore: The Chiefs have made the Super Bowl every year that someone from her family wears a magical vintage Chiefs winter hat during the Christmas Day football game. The hat was given to her grandpa years ago by a bell-ringing Santa Clause as a thanks for his generous charitable donation. It went missing for a period of time until it came back to their family. The years it was gone, the Chiefs never made the Super Bowl. When it was returned? Well, you know.
Derrick’s dead heart doesn’t believe the story, and it almost costs him the girl. When he expresses his doubt, Alana’s family bids him farewell from the store, offering him their rejected fruitcake as a parting gift.
Enter fate. It’s not long before Derrick is back on their doorstep because he’s tasked with screening one of the finalists for the Chiefs Fan of the Year contest – Alana’s family.
Other finalists include the family of an influencer pet named “Catrick Mahomes” and a family whose Christmas home decorations would be worn by Taylor Swift to a Chiefs game if they were adorned to a vintage jacket.
Derrick invites Alana to represent the family at the staff Christmas party, where all the finalists will be presented. While there, he sneaks her away for a surprise, covering her eyes before the big reveal of…an empty stadium. Something tells me that if this was what the Beast showed Belle instead of his massive library, his cursed employees would still be sleeping in cupboards. But lucky for Derrick, Alana loves it, and they kiss.
Derrick doesn’t exactly have the hardest time selling that Alana’s family — who say “Chiefs” instead of “cheese” when they take pictures — are the biggest fans of all, and the movie doesn’t waste too much time making you wonder: They win the contest.
The real twist is that this happens with half of this movie still left.
Seemingly recognizing their own thin premise, the filmmakers move onto a new source of tension when the hat goes missing. Yes, the love story turns into a heist film.
Alana breaks the news of the burgled beanie to her family on Christmas Eve Eve Eve and while shocked, they are not without hope that everything will work out in the end.
They are all further distracted because Derrick comes to their non-holiday holiday dinner with a big gift: a pair of seats from the original Chiefs stadium. And they’re not just any seats. They’re the ones Alana’s grandparents used to sit in.
I’m not gonna lie; I cried.
Derrick and Alana later have a brief fight when Derrick accuses her of having “more faith in a hat than in me.” Even if she did, she did meet you like four days ago, Derrick.
They get over their tiff in time to celebrate with the Chiefs Kingdom at the big Christmas Day game, where Derrick has arranged a surprise. Even though the hat is still missing, he’s had the team provide hats that look like Alana’s family’s vintage hat for the whole crowd. The cheap, quickly produced imitation hats move Alana to tears. She doesn’t ask how the team managed to have 76,000 hats produced in mere days because I’m guessing it would have ruined the moment. Merry Christmas, labor laws.
The magic is further preserved when Santa (played by Abraham Benrubi), the same one who gave her grandpa the hat many decades ago, returns the hat to Alana. So Christmas and love is saved by Jerry from “ER.”
Did Santa steal the hat so he could make himself relevant again? Did Derrick sew the hats himself? Was Catrick Mahomes robbed in the Fan of the Year contest? So many questions. But as a great poet once wrote, “Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?”
