‘Jingle Bell Heist’ Review: Netflix’s New Holiday Caper Is More Lump of Coal Than Christmas Cheer

‘Jingle Bell Heist’ Review: Netflix’s New Holiday Caper Is More Lump of Coal Than Christmas Cheer Image via Netflix By  Luna Guthrie Published 37 minutes ago Luna Guthrie is a Movie Features Editor for Collider, writer and film critic. She began as a writer for Collider in 2021 and joined the editorial team in 2024. She has a bachelor's degree in Humanities and Creative Writing.  Luna is a lifelong film geek and horror fan with a love of anything 1970s, especially in film - the grainier, the better! When not watching movies or reading and writing about them, Luna loves making clothes from vintage patterns, going to the theater, reading the memoirs of interesting people and attending horror conventions. She would have been a hanger-on of the LA glam rock scene, but since she was born forty years too late, she settled for writing. Sign in to your Collider account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

Not all Christmas movies need to end in a romantic coupling between the lead characters, and if any film proves this, it's Netflix's Jingle Bell Heist. Sure, it's a well-worn trope of the holiday movie, but there are times when it is shoehorned into a narrative that doesn't earn it. In fact, it would be nice to get more of a buddy vibe in the genre, and Jingle Bell Heist has all its ducks in a row to pull off such an ending, but insists on squeezing the obligatory dramatic kiss out of the ending when a platonic vibe would have been much better suited. Hell, it could even have given birth to a Christmas franchise if they'd wanted it, but here we are.

What Is 'Jingle Bell Heist' About?

Jingle Bell Heist is your run-of-the-mill heist movie that happens to take place at Christmas, and the time of year is so incidental to the plot that it fails to rouse much of a holly-jolly spirit in the viewer. Set in London, we have an American department store worker, Sophia (Olivia Holt), and local tech guy with a shady past, Nick (Connor Swindells), who happen to meet because he formerly handled the security systems at the store, and through cameras he still has access to, he sees her stealing money from the company coffers. He essentially blackmails her into an arrangement that will be mutually beneficial: they carry out a heist on the department store and split the money, so that she can pay for private medical care for her hospitalized mother, and he can prove to his ex that he is a stable and capable father figure to their daughter.

Now, you'd hope (especially given the poster that looks promisingly witty) that this would be a pretty funny movie. After all, it's Christmas, and this Robin Hood story of taking from the rich to give to the poor should tickle the fancy of us little people who are living in economically uncertain times. But, boy, is this movie flat. It gives us almost no humor, very little action, given that it's a heist movie, and considering its ending, not even an inkling of romance. None of this is helped by the less-than-inspired performances offered by the two leads. Olivia Holt, whose character is meant to be going through some deeply heart-wrenching struggles, offers a portrayal almost totally void of emotion, apparently content in just being a pretty face that conveys zero feeling. Connor Swindells is better, but there is nothing approaching chemistry between them, or any of the good cheer you'd hope for from a holiday movie. It feels as though the casting directors got the brief for one male Brit and one female American in their late 20s, picked two out of a hat and called it a day.

Background Characters Steal the Show From the Leads

Thank the good Lord that the delightful and magnetic Lucy Punch comes sauntering in halfway through as the opulent wife of the department store owner. This woman could put on a fancy dress and read a restaurant menu, and somehow make it funny. While we get absolutely nowhere near enough of her, she delivers the sharpness and, well, punch, that this movie is desperately lacking, and she is the one to deliver its one laugh-out-loud moment. With the rich slyness that she mastered in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, she is dazzling as the double-crossing femme fatale, and it feels like the movie only starts to get interesting when she is thrown into the otherwise bumbling mix. Sadly, it's a token effort, and the action soon reverts to our two leads.

The department store, taking inspiration from the great Miracle on 34th Street, proves to be as strong a Christmas backdrop as ever, and it is styled and dressed beautifully for the occasion. If anything, I wish more of the action took place there. The production design team really nails the aesthetic of the place, from the decorations to the staff uniforms, and it feels like a bit more of a magical, whimsical energy might have been conjured if the action had stuck more firmly to the store itself. It offers a backdrop of fun characters, from the other sales assistants to the security guards, and might have lined up the store owner, Mr. Sterling (the fabulous Peter Serafinowicz), as a more imposing villain. But as it is, the more characterful players are relegated to the background, while the bulk of the action chugs along with dwindling stores of charisma.

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Posts By  Jeremy Urquhart Dec 2, 2024

I get that American audiences enjoy a bit of British influence, but it's getting a little grating how many of these media portrayals, especially Christmas movies, seem to be writing Britishness from an American viewpoint, or at least one that has no idea about what British culture and living is really like. In the last two weeks, I've seen two new Christmas movies with British characters named Nigel, both of whom were in their 20s. I can confidently tell you that I've never met a Nigel under the age of 60, and if one exists, it must be because his parents hate him. Similarly, Nick is meant to be living in a crummy flat-share situation in London with his friend, and while the exterior shots of the building do indeed show a tiny council flat block, the interiors are of a high-ceilinged, beautifully-furnished penthouse that most certainly does not match. Poor young folks living in London share bedrooms, for God's sake. They don't have living rooms the size of a house, decked out with vast record collections and Persian rugs. Perhaps we would feel more for Nick's situation if it looked like he was actually living a low-quality life, but quite frankly, he looks more than comfortable, particularly by London standards. Show me an unheated shoebox where he lives on microwaved baked beans and his breath is visible indoors, and maybe I'll care a little more.

I can't say I was expecting much from this Netflix holiday movie, but it could have been so much more than it ended up as. The thoroughly entertaining villains should have played more of a role, as should the store, and the material should have been more comedy-focused and delivered by actors with more of a knack for it. Once this heist was over, they could have spun it out into sequels, where each year a new operation got underway. It's a shame that this one falls so flat.

Jingle Bell Heist is now available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

5 10

Jingle Bell Heist

A dull, lifeless heist movie that doesn't offer much in the way of Christmas cheer.

Like Follow Followed Romance Crime Comedy Release Date November 26, 2025 Runtime 96 Minutes Director Michael Fimognari Writers Abby McDonald Producers Matt Kaplan

Cast

See All

• Olivia Holt Sophia
• Connor Swindells Nick

Jingle Bell Heist follows two strangers who join forces to rob a renowned New York department store during the height of the holiday season, while unexpectedly developing romantic feelings for each other.

Genres Romance, Crime, Comedy Expand Collapse Pros & Cons

• Lucy Punch and Peter Serafinowicz are reliably hilarious as the villains.
• Production design does what it can to make the movie feel festive.

• The lead actors give lethargic performances.
• This romantic comedy is not funny and doesn't justify its third-act romance.

• Movie Reviews
• Jingle Bell Heist
• Netflix

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