I think the whole point of this movie is to find an excuse to watch Chad Michael Murray and other sexy men and happy gentlemen dancing topless. Hey, there are worse reasons to make a movie. There's an argument to be made that this movie should have gone further and given us an hour and a half of male dance revue, because instead it tricks us with the most cliché tropes for every quick dance number. You can browse the film on Afdah info
Screenplay: Jeffrey Schenck, Peter Sullivan, Marla Sokoloff
We start off with a big city girl returning to her small hometown. Ashley (Britt Robertson) is a Broadway dancer in New York City who gets fired for being too old (I think her words were "I wasn't fresh enough"). Her first encounter in the small town is with a local craftsman, Luke (Chad Michael Murray), who helps her parents and the townsfolk with small repairs, and because he's kind-hearted, he does it for free. Then she finds out that her parents' business, a bar and venue called The Rhythm Room, is struggling and has to close. And, no joke, the classic rom-com doesn't end there: if they can raise $30,000 in 30 days, they can save their parents' business.
You might think it takes more than a few days to cast, design, choreograph and produce a successful men's dance show, but you'd be wrong. It only took 10 days, or 30 minutes of film, to be exact. That's the saving grace of the movie, the striptease dancing is the only reason to watch it. The faster they wrap up the show, the longer we get to actually watch the show, because the rest of the movie is the most predictable romantic comedy clichés imaginable, including the most unrealistic, idealistic little town called Sycamore Creek, where there's a diner, a bar, a hardware store, and everything lights up for Christmas. We've seen Gilmore Girls.
I'm normally a rom-com fan, and while I can accept most of the rom-com clichés and plot twists, I prefer ones with real warmth and a compelling leading couple. The plot here just seems lazy - what's the easiest, cheapest storyline that'll give us an excuse to watch Chad Michael Murray dance topless? That was the answer.
After all, does the world need more sexy Christmas rom-coms? Yes, it does. And The Merry Gentlemen delivers.