Christmas Break-In

Christmas Break-In is a 2018 family Christmas movie produced by G It's Entertainment and Koan, directed by Micheal Kampa, written by Spanky Dustin Ward, and distributed by Covenant Communications and Gravitas Ventures. The movie stars in Danny Glover as Ray, Cameron Seely as Izzy Rush, Katrina Begin as Barbi, Jake Van Wagoner as Ray, and Douglas Spain as Rico.

Summary
Izzy Rush, who is an 9 year-old elementary schooler, wakes up one day and asks her parents to buy her an electric guitar as a gift for Christmas. Overscheduled and running late, her parents can't pick her up on time on the last day of school before Christmas break. A blizzard complicates the matter, but not as much so as a pair of bad guys who are freezing in an ice cream truck. The school janitor (Ray) is kidnapped by them, and it's up to Izzy to save the day.

Why Johnny Would Use His Tommy Gun On It

 * 1) For starters, this movie is another attempt to capitalize and cash in on the success of Home Alone but failed miserably.
 * 2) A cliched and unoriginal plot where it focuses on criminals trying to rob a place and it's up to the kid to protect the place from being burglarized and setting up booby traps, which takes place in a school rather than a house. Sounds Familiar?
 * 3) Atrocious and lazy acting from almost every single character in the movie except for Ray, Rico, and Izzy's dad.
 * 4) Izzy's parents are very unlikable characters as they are very terrible with their time management and forget to do everything that Izzy wants to do with them.
 * 5) Awful character personalities which includes Barbi being a spoiled brat who hates her brother Ned and wanting to steal money just to go to Acapulco and Ned, while being a nice person, is brain dead most of time in the movie.
 * 6) Izzy herself, is also a bit of an unlikable character as well due to the fact that she is demandant but she's not as bad as her parents since it's understandable that they neglect her.
 * 7) The "Ice Cream Truck Bandits" name is just a rehash of the "Wet Bandits" from Home Alone, which is another reason why this movie is a ripoff.
 * 8) While the plot is cliched, it sounds like it was written as a school project by a middle schooler, in which case sounds very inexpensive despite the film's budget being around $7 million which means that the movie could've had a lower budget to reduce production costs.
 * 9) Has very poor attempts at having humor with no effort at all.
 * 10) Has several stereotypes where it focuses on parents being too busy with their jobs and not wanting to spend time with their children, sending the wrong messages that it's okay to do so.
 * 11) Misleading Title: While it does takes place in a Christmas setting, the movie doesn't begin directly on Christmas Day and instead focuses on the last of day of school before Christmas break, while it may seem that's the case, it primarily focuses on the school setting most of the time and having barley any mentions about Christmas.
 * 12) Poorly edited movie poster that looks like it was cheaply made in Photoshop.
 * 13) Product placements such as iPhones, Jeep, and drones.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) There are some great scenes where Ray and Izzy practice playing guitars together, making Ray a brilliant mentor for Izzy as she has talent through out the movie.
 * 2) The part where Ray discussed his backstory and talked about a fictional story on how the school was originally a prison from the 1800s to 1900s was interesting.
 * 3) While the acting is terrible, Danny Glover, Sean O'Bryan and Douglas Spain do terrific jobs as their character roles respectfully.
 * 4) While it has wrong messages in the movie, there's one message saying "Busy is just an excuse" sends a good moral that it's important to manage and balance your time while doing important and unimportant things.
 * Ray, Nick Rush (Izzy's brother who cares for and tries to rescue her), and Ned are likable characters in this movie.
 * 1) Decent Ending: While it's cliched, the ending has some good moments in where the criminals are finally arrested while Ned will possibly have a lower sentence in prison and Izzy gets the guitar that belonged to Ray himself for Christmas and play some songs that they practiced together.

Reception
Christmas Break-In was met with a very negative reception from critics and audiences alike with a score of 4.5/10 on IMDb.

Trivia

 * Cameron Seely, the actor of Izzy in this film, also starred in another Christmas film that was released a week after this. That film was Illumination's adaptation of The Grinch.