Holiday Rush is a 2019 Netlix Christmas movie that I must have missed last year when I was doing my first annual roundup of Christmas movies. And after watching it, I can see why. There’s nothing wrong with this movie at all, really. It’s just… boring AF. And yet in spite of that, I feel like this one is going to end up ranking high on the Christmas scale. Why, you ask? Well, let’s just run it through and see what happens.
So here’s the basic story before we jump into ratings. DJ Rashon "Rush" Williams (played by Romany Malco who I later realized I recognized from Weeds) plays a single father who is raising his kids and spoiling them rotten because I guess he’s just making millions working as a radio DJ. Is this a thing?
Anyway, the radio station he works for gets bought out and they want to switch to a pop format. So imagine their abject horror when Rush plays “Christmas in Hollis” on the radio. Gasp! This is one of the most inoffensive rap songs ever, but okay. Long story short, he gets fired right before Christmas and now he’s going to have to tell his spoiled-ass kids that they can’t get ponies or go to Harvard or live in a mansion any longer. Hijinks, hilarity, and morals about family values ensue.
So let’s rate this already.
Romance: 5/10. Ew, I hated this romance plot line.
Let me explain.
So Rush works at the radio station with Roxy, but after Rush gets fired, Roxy and Rush decide to journey out on their own to start a new radio station where they can play the music they want to hear. And eventually they realize that they have feelings for one another.
So far so good, right? Yeah, I thought so too.
But then Roxy starts thinking about how she’s going to get incorporated into Rush’s family, and she’s suddenly going to have all these kids when she never really saw herself as the family type of gal. The more she thinks about it, the more she starts to get messages from the world that all she really needs to be happy is a baby and a family. Because fuck the person this grown ass woman thought she was.
This type of messaging may seem harmless, but woman are constantly told through pop culture that if we don’t want kids and we don’t want a family, we’re just wrong and eventually we’ll see the error of our ways. Men are not fed that same message. So no, I was not cool with this at all.
Morality: 10/10. This movie is heavy on the morality. At the end of the day, this is a story about how family and love is more important than money. Which is nice and all, and I can’t fault the movie for this messaging because it’s all very Christmassy. At the same time, I really hope Rush found a way to pay for his son Jamal (played by Amarr M. Wooten) to go to Harvard. Because it’s hard to imagine anything more crushing than getting into a school like Harvard and then not being able to go.
Music: 10/10. I’m going to keep this short and sweet. This movie prominently features “Christmas in Hollis” by Run DMC. No notes.
Christmas Spirit: 10/10. As I’ve said, this movie is all about the value of family and reconnecting with family during the holidays and how important that is. There are also a lot of snowy cold scenes and Christmas lights. And Christmas trees! My hands are tied. This is 10/10 on the Christmas spirit.
Warmth: 8/10. I mean, it’s really hard to give a movie a bad rating when the family is dealing with the MAJOR LOSS of a family member. As I mentioned, Rush is a single dad. His wife died before the events of this movie, but his family is still dealing with the loss of her and learning how to be a family without her. All of this is very sweet, but it lacked the nuance that a topic like this deserves. Probably because this movie is super short. But they definitely gave it a shot.
Total: 43/50 = 86%. I told you this movie was going to rate high. This is a by-the-numbers Christmas movie that knows what it’s doing. Does that make it a fun movie to watch? Turns out no. But it is in fact a Christmas movie. Congrats to it.
If you also missed Holiday Rush in 2019, it’s available on Netflix now. Check it out, or don’t. It probably won’t change your life.