That’s right. Ludacris, who wanted to lick you head to toe, or to movie b*tch, get out the way and get back mother f*cker you don’t know him like that, is now the lead in a Disney Channel Original Christmas movie (DCOM). It’s been a long, fast, and furious journey from Ludacris to Chris Bridges, who is perfectly solid as the lead of a Christmas movie. Plus, that means we get an Atlanta adventure, not exactly a holiday staple, but a welcome new one.
Bridges plays Eddie Garrick, a man so traumatized by Christmas as a child he became a social worker and tries to help other people who struggled like him during the holiday season. Eddie’s life is a bit of a mess though: he’s separated from his wife Allison (Teyonah Parris), and taking care of his daughter Charlotte (Madison Skye Validum) while Allison shops. While playing cards at home, Eddie sees a man stuck in his vacationing neighbor’s house. The good guy helps Nick Sinter-Claus (Lil Rel Howery) free himself. Furthermore, Eddie, the nice guy that he is, tries to get Nick some psychological help, since, you know, he insists on delivering presents to kids and meeting up with reindeer and such.
My biggest complaint with Dashing Through the Snow is that there’s no snow until the very end. However, the misleading title doesn’t portend failure. That’s mostly because director Tim Story leans less on the Snow and more on the Dashing in the title. Ludacris, Madison Skye Validum, and Lil Rel Howery take us on a journey across Atlanta, hopping from place to place every 10 minutes or so. Because there’s only one thing to care about – Eddie’s belief in Santa – the movie stalls for time by taking us to elf parties, Santa pub crawls, car chases, and some light investigative journalism involving a shady mayor (Oscar Nunez) and his lackies (Mary Lynn Rajskub, Ravi Patel). The dashing around gives Eddie, Nick and Charlotte time to bounce off each other, trying too hard to be funny but with their hearts in the right place as well as their performances: Ludacris is the straight man, Howery the spastic comedienne, and Validum plain adorable child support. And frankly, all black Christmas movies with no real bad guys don’t exactly exist in great quantity, so it’s nice to see a new type of family and Santa onscreen, with emotional Christmas speech in tow.
The only thing missing was a Ludacris closing number. But it would have been hard to keep it PG. As is, Dashing Through the Snow is harmless sweet streaming diversion, and just a little better than the drivel you’d see on Hallmark or Lifetime. Although, now that I think about it, this should have been on Lifetime; if only to blow everyone’s minds to see Ludacris in a Lifetime movie.