Jingle Bell Heist Review: A Stuffed Christmas Movie That Fails to Steal Hearts
What if you made Ocean’s Eleven meets a Hallmark Christmas movie? It’s a great idea in theory for Netflix’s new streaming movie Jingle Bell Heist.
When Sophie (Olivia Holt) is caught on security footage stealing cash from her department store workplace, Nick (Connor Swindells) enlists her in a bigger heist that could solve both of their money problems. Both protagonists have solid, if somewhat cliché, motivations for pulling off such a crime.
Sophie’s mother is terminally ill and needs a specialist that the NHS can’t provide without a months-long wait. Nick, already previously imprisoned for theft, is at risk of losing his young daughter.
Factor in the magical London Christmas-time setting, and it sounds like you could have a fun new holiday movie. Unfortunately, this overstuffed stocking of a movie squanders its great potential by trying to pack in too many plot points and not enough chemistry.
If the film had just stopped with the original heist plan and focused on developing a romance, maybe this could have been a thin but feel-good Christmas movie about two down-on-their-luck people living in London. However, in pursuit of humor and to fill runtime, the plot just gets more and more convoluted.
Jingle Bell Heist should actually be called heists, plural, because there are multiple attempts at stealing from the antagonist, Maxwell Sterling (Peter Serafinowicz), the Grinch-y owner of the department store. Oh, he also (SPOILER WARNING) framed Nick for a robbery he didn’t commit and is Sophie’s biological father.
That’s right, Nick isn’t even actually a criminal, making his willingness to go through with the increasingly convoluted attempts at stealing from Sterling even stranger. At least Sophie’s grandfather was a magician (another random plot point) so she has some bona fides to pull off a heist!
Admittedly, there are some fun sequences, including when Nick awkwardly tries to seduce Sterling’s wife Cynthia, played by the excellent Lucy Punch. It’s a shame we don’t get more of Punch until later in the film, and she provides a great twist that makes the ending more satisfying.
If you’re willing to stomach the absurd plot for some Christmas cheer, the characters are at least pretty likeable. Holt and Swindells are charming despite how little real character development they’re given to work with.
Sophie and Nick rarely get to be more than their trauma or their surface-level relationships with co-workers, roommates, exes, etc.
His very British-ness and her very American-ness make them perfect for a pair of unlikely friends. However, the movie pushes them to become more than friends by the end, which is more than their natural chemistry and the confines of the plot can handle.
There is no reason to think these two should fall in love in two weeks over failed crime attempts other than maybe proximity. Quite frankly, they both have too much going on to entertain a new relationship, but that’s a holiday rom-com for you.
Jingle Bell Heist is unlikely to move the needle for Netflix, but it may play in the background of homes this holiday season.
What did you think of this episode of Jingle Bell Heist? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your own rating!
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Jingle Bell Heist is streaming now on Netflix.
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Breeze Riley
Breeze Riley is a pop culture enthusiast who decided to turn her love of watching too much TV into a hobby writing about it. Although she's a convention-going sci-fi and fantasy nerd, she's just as likely to be watching an off-beat comedy or period drama. She is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic.