Hallmark gets into the fall feeling with Fourth Down and Love, a football-themed romance starring Pascale Hutton and Ryan Paevey. He’s an injured pro player. She’s got a daughter on an intramural flag football team. They’ve got unresolved romantic history. Yes, you can absolutely see where this play is going. Can Fourth Down and Love still score a touchdown, or should this romance have stayed in the playbook?
The Gist: Pascale Hutton (When Calls the Heart) plays Erin, a divorced mom who is so focused on her real estate career that she can’t pay attention to big football games the way her daughter can. Ryan Paevey (A Fabled Holiday) plays Mike, a star player for the Whalers, the Pacific Northwest’s beloved Football League of America team — that is until another injury takes him out of the game for yet another stretch of time. Nursing some broken ribs and a bruised ego, Mike travels to his brother’s (Dan Payne) home to recuperate. That home just so happens to be in the same town as Erin… meaning that Mike and Erin are in the same town for the first time since she ended their college romance!
It turns out that fate aligned to put Mike’s niece and Erin’s daughter on the same middle school flag football team — an all-girl team that ends up needing a coach. Why not let the pro player coach the kids and take a crack at the surprisingly intricate rules of flag football? With Erin by his side, how can he fail? Also, how can Erin avoid falling back in love with the one that got away? And how can Mike stay close to his family when his agent seems determined to trade him to another team? And these two thought flag football was complicated — !
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: There’s a lot of Hallmark’s Hearts in the Game here, especially the fact that the leads start as exes rather than strangers. If the movie focused more on the kids and Coach Mike, the pro-coaches-kids storyline could feel more Mighty Ducks-ish.
Performance Worth Watching: This movie has precisely zero thankless roles. The supporting cast is filled with characters who could either lead their own sketch, if not a full movie. I particularly loved Kalyn Miles (School Spirits) as Erin’s slightly sardonic boss Georgina who ribs Erin about her lovelife while seemingly always eating a cookie? Also great is Darby Steeves as the small town egomaniac micromanaging the flag football team fundraiser. It’s a rich role and Steeves clearly has fun with it.
Memorable Dialogue: I was really charmed by Erin clocking Kristina’s hyper ambition and saying, “It’s a PowerPoint. We’re doomed.”
Our Take: I’m happy to report that Fourth Down and Love offers no real surprises plot-wise and pretty much adheres to every trope you expect from both a Hallmark romance and a kid-centric sports movie. You bet Mike’s brother and sister-in-law try to set him up with Erin every chance they can get. You bet there’s a sweet and sassy grandma. There’s a fundraiser, a winning touchdown, hurt feelings and boosted morale, all that good stuff. I’m happy that Fourth Down and Love has all of that, because all of those plot points are fun to see and because it means I can focus this take on what the movie really excels at: character.
Everyone in this movie is having so much gosh darn fun, I couldn’t fault the plot for much. Pascale Hutton has such a big, goofy-yet-reserved energy, she steals every scene she’s in just by standing there. And that’s saying something, because this movie is actually funny.
All Hallmark romances have jokes in them, but they usually err on the sweet and soft side. They’re the kind of jokes you might say “ha” to instead of actually laughing at. But Fourth Down and Love is a Hallmark romance that might actually get a giggle, chortle, chuckle, or more from you — repeatedly. There’s just a confidence to this one that makes it stand out from a lot of Hallmark’s romances — and it’s similar to the confidence that Guiding Emily exhibited last night on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. Even though that one skewed in the other direction dramatically, both movies are well-made examples of what this network can score when their play is executed perfectly.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Even if you don’t understand flag football, which apparently no one does, you’ll still find a whole lot to love about Fourth Down and Love.