Operation Christmas Drop



Netflix’s commitment to relentless Christmassy movies has brought us this odd combination of a political drama, and some sort of mashup of Good Morning Vietnam and Top Gun… at Christmas. It’s the story of Erica (Kat Graham), who’s young and ambitious to get a job in Washington politics. And since she works for the workaholic Congresswoman Bradford (Virginia Madsen), this is probably going to happen. Anyway Erica wants to escape from a difficult family circumstance, and when she’s sent to Guam by Bradford, the opportunity to skip Christmas is right in front of her.

What’s in Guam? A Military base which is being considered for closure. There are savings to be made, especially since there seems to be a Christmas “drop”—a humanitarian operation delivering much-needed supplies to isolated islanders. Erica is immediately confronted with Andrew Jantz (Alexander Ludwig)—very much the cocky Air Force Guy… But wait! Jantz has brought light to his operation by posing on a website in his flight suit with a tiny Santa hat and a ukulele. Erica goes down there fully intending to fillet the balance sheet, but Jantz’s charisma and charm are on her like a sidewinder. She’s the out-of-towner who puts everyone on edge, holed up in very basic base accommodation with no other company than a dodgy internet connection and an obviously computer generated gecko on the wall.


There’s no point she can raise about the cost of Jantz’s charitable operation that he cannot counter with how the cost is offset by something else. But the key to Jantz isn’t the way he handles people, or helicopters, or transport aircraft: it’s that the man has a heart of Gold, Frankincense, and…maybe not myrrh.


Erica falls pretty hard for the mission and the man, and the Washington people are going nuts. The film spends quite a long time on the set-up and nails down the payoff a bit too quickly. On the other hand these films are all about the perfect happy ending and it’s cynical to say anything other than a bit of fun. The CGI gecko stuck out more than the idea that the story sentimentalises military superpowers because that’s not the point or the intention of the story.

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