📸: Hallmark Gold Crown
I give this movie 8 out of 10 vomits
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
🟢 Plot 🟢
A mechanic from Philly, Johnny, learns his long lost father is a Duke.
🟢 The Stars 🟢
Andrew Walker – Johnny
Emilie de Ravin – Prudence
🟢 Non Spoiler Spew 🟢
First off, I was so excited to see Belle (Emilie de Ravin) from Once Upon a Time in a Hallmark movie. I hope she is in more!
This was a fun movie to watch. I enjoyed every bit of it. There were parts where I found myself saying ‘Huh?’, but it was still a good watch. The story was great and I am sure it can resonate with many people. Obviously not the royal part 😅 but the absentee father part. Even though they did not play up that aspect of it toooo much, I still felt it tugging at my heartstrings.
I thought Emilie and Andrew did a great job working together. Their chemistry could have been a little better, but I do think that is due to Emilie playing her character very well. Since her character was to be more standoff ish and taking her job seriously, I feel Emilie really lost herself in that character. There is nothing wrong with that, but it left little room for chemistry. Even with that said, I still believed that Prudence and Johnny could end up being together. They balance each other out really well.
Overall, this was an enjoyable movie. If I saw it playing on the Hallmark channel I would definitely give it another watch.
🔴 Spoiler Spew 🔴
The opening of this movie is already great. It is similar to royal tapestry artwork. The best way I can describe it is they are like cave wall paintings. I am sure that is incorrect, but it seems right to me 😅 Anyhoo, it shows our mechanic making his way towards the British flag.
We open with Johnny working on a car in his shop. The woman he has been seeing for 3 months stops in to speak with him about committing to her. Johnny says he cannot do that, so they end things.
This whole opening was such a weird vibe. The person Johnny was seeing all we see at first are her legs. The camera keeps going back between Johnny and the woman’s legs. I felt this was a bit unnecessary. The camera just could have focused on Johnny and have the woman be more of a voice over. Nothing wrong with the woman’s legs, just thought the angles were a bit weird.
Also, this woman be crazy. How is she wanting Johnny to commit to her already even though they have only been dating for 3 months? They are just barely getting to know each other. So, I do think they should have written them for dating longer.
The Duke, William, tells Prudence, his advisor, that he wants to retire from being the Duke. He is tired of everything and he was never able to connect with the people. He tells Prudence to get his affairs in order and to contact the next heir in line. Prudence knows this will be a person named Alistair who is not the nicest person. When Prudence was going through the Duke’s things, she finds a wedding certificate. The Duke married an American, Dottie, when he was young. Prudence searches her and finds out she had a son.
PRUDENCE IS BELLE FROM ONCE UPON A TIME! That was such a wonderful surprise. I really liked her on that show.
Prudence makes her way to the states to find Johnny and to tell him he is the Dukes son and he is next in line. Johnny talks it over with his mom and his mom tells him that she sent the Duke annulment papers as well as a letter saying she was pregnant. She does convince Johnny to go and meet his father. Johnny uses the plane ticket Prudence gave him to go see his father.
When Johnny arrives in town, his cab driver tells him that the Duke’s castle is in a lot of debt and it doesn’t mean anything to the people anymore. Alistair and his mom are with the Duke getting things ready for Alistair to take over. While they are settling in, Johnny arrives. Prudence tells him that he has to change his attire because there is a dress code.
While Johnny is touring the castle he is taking pictures. Prudence tells him not to touch anything, so of course he does. He takes a sword and uses it to fight a Knight statue. This is when the Duke walks in on his fight. The meeting between the two did not go as planned and Johnny ends up leaving. Prudence tells him he is an heir so he cannot stay at a local pub. Johnny tells her then maybe he will stay at an heirbnb.
Taking pictures is something I would totally do if I were in Johnny’s situation. When Johnny made that Airbnb joke I laughed out loud.
Johnny ends up at the pub the Pickled Pickle. While he is there he connects with the people and they learn who he is because one of the patrons is dating someone who works at the castle. Prudence gets to the pub and tells Johnny the Duke wants him to stay for the week and attend the ball. Prudence orders water and Johnny tells her, you are what you drink. They challenge each other to a darts game to see if Johnny will stay. Prudence wins. Alistair and Johnny finally meet.
While touring the grounds, Johnny finds out the Duke does not charge his people rent. He also learns the Duke took care of Prudence when her parents died.
Alistair invites Johnny and Prudence to go for a ride with him. Prudence gives Johnny a horse named Cream Puff. Johnny tells Alistair that his horse is named Rambo. During the ride Alistair challenges Johnny to a small race and Alistair’s horse gets frustrated and starts to ride off away quickly. Johnny saves him.
When Johnny said his horse’s name is Rambo I gave a pretty good chuckle.
During a dinner party Johnny said he will take the job as Duke. Johnny does this because he is fed up with Alistair’s attitude. After the dinner, Alistair tells his mom that he will make Johnny leave. Johnny has a hard time sleeping after his decision. So he starts to work on an old car he found on the grounds. His dad comes in and helps him with the car. The Duke and Johnny get to know each other more and they come to realize that the Dukes father hid all the letters Dottie wrote to him. Including the one where she told him she was pregnant.
The scene with Johnny and his dad was super cute because normally it is the son helping the dad. But this time around the dad was helping his son. It was also a cute scene because the Duke says that he never gets dirty. So it was nice to see them bond.
Alistair is snooping around and finds the annulment paper work Dottie was telling Johnny about earlier. He learns the paper work was submitted before Johnny was born and he sees that the Duke signed it. So this means Johnny is no longer in line to become Duke. Prudence investigates this new finding and she learns the Dukes signature was forged. During the ball, Alistair shares his findings with everyone, but so does prudence. Prudence tells everyone that the Duke is left handed, and the signature was done by someone who is right handed.
Prudence and Johnny head outside. They share a kiss and then they start to run.
It ends with Johnny, Prudence, and the Duke in the stables where the Duke tells Johnny he needs to tell him all about his family tree.
This movie ended super weird. I was not a fan of Prudence and Johnny just running off to no where. But then the movie ends on the Duke talking about the family tree. This could have ben saved for an earlier scene and then end the movie on Prudence and Johnny running. I honestly thought the ending scene was a blooper. Other than this weird ending, the movie wasn’t too bad.
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