Hallmark’s Three Wiser Men And A Boy (the sequel to 2022’s Three Wise Men and A Baby) reunites three of the network’s most popular leading me, Paul Campbell, Andrew Walker and Tyler Hines, as the Brenner brothers. In the first film, the men were tasked with caring for a baby named Thomas who was left on the doorstep at the local firehouse, and in this new film, Thomas, now adopted by one of the brothers but essentially being raised by all three, is in a Christmas pageant that needs saving, and his dad(s) are just the men to do it. While it occasionally veers into slapstick silliness, the movie owes a lot of its success to solid performances, especially by Margaret Colin, who plays the mom, and Miles Marthaller who plays Thomas.
THREE WISER MEN AND A BOY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: An exhausted-looking man looks in his bathroom mirror reciting affirmations to himself (“You are strong. Capable. A warrior.” Etc.) before he’s interrupted by a boy who runs in desperate to go number one. That’s just the beginning of Luke Brenner’s downward spiral of a day.
The Gist: Luke, Stephan, and Taylor Brenner (Andrew Walker, Paul Campbell, and Tyler Hines) are three brothers whose lives are all a little chaotic at the moment. Luke, a fire chief, is single-parenting his young son Thomas for a week while his wife is on a work trip, and he’s barely keeping it together, so he asks his brothers for a little help, but they both have problems of their own. Taylor is attempting to get a video game development company off the ground, but despite his best efforts, he’s at a standstill and, even worse, with no money coming in, he learns he’s getting evicted from his apartment. Meanwhile, Stephan’s default setting is “anxious” and on top of that, he’s spent the last few years writing a self-help book but neglecting his relationship with his girlfriend, Susie, who is frustrated by his inattentiveness. Oh, and their mom Barbara (Margaret Colin) has a new surprise boyfriend, a pastor named Roy (Christopher Shyer) that they’re not sure how to respond to because Roy is basically too perfect and they resent the idea of a new father figure in their lives.
When Taylor and Stephan visit Thomas at his Christmas pageant rehearsal at school, it’s a full-on disaster and through one misstep that leads to a chain reaction of events, they accidentally destroy the entire set and all the costumes, and break the will of the music director who quits the show on the spot. As penance, the school principal forces the three brothers to take over, and it becomes entirely up to the three brothers to make the school pageant go off without a hitch.
The brothers and the young performers struggle with morale at first, but pretty soon they become a rag-tag group of scrappy theater folk whose determination won’t be discouraged. But even though they’re committed to making the show a success, there are still loads of hiccups along the way. While Luke throws himself into the show, he forgets about his annual work charity fundraiser that’s on the same night as the pageant and beats himself up for spreading himself too thin. Taylor starts to grow close to the show’s accompanist, Caroline (Erin Karpluk), a musician who is definitely vibing on him, although they have a brief fight when she thinks he’s forgetting that this is a show for the kids and not to fuel his own ego. Similarly, Stephan and his girlfriend Susie (Fiona Vroom, what a name!) have a fight when she worries he’s taking the show too seriously. And when the brothers all go in on Roy, who has been nothing but kind to them, and essentially tell him they don’t need a new dad, Roy and Barbara are both upset at the behavior.
You best believe everything gets resolved by the night of the pageant, and along the way, the Brenner brothers realize that maybe they have to start letting go of their expectations and anxiety and just enjoy the spirit of Christmas.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Three Wiser Men and a Boy is the sequel to Three Wise Men and A Baby, which was an obvious take on Three Men and A Baby. I guess that makes this sequel a riff on Three Men and a Little Lady?
Our Take: Hallmark has been embracing its male protagonists lately with it’s recent The Groomsmen trilogy event, and now Three Wiser Men and a Boy, all of which feature a trio of men in the central roles (and all of which co-star Tyler Hines, who is quickly rising in my own personal ranks as a Hallmark fave.) While each of the Groomsmen films was a romantic film that traced the evolution of the main character’s love life, Three Wiser Men is less concerned about love and more of a family drama. Each of the men has his own problems (and are using Thomas’s pageant as a way to perhaps exert some control over their otherwise out-of-control lives), which leads to a lot of conflict.
Fortunately, the movie has a couple of super-chill ladies to solve everything. (I may sound facetious, but I’m actually not.) It takes the wise words of Taylor’s love interest Caroline, a jazz pianist who is at one with the universe, to make him realize life is all about the journey and not the destination, and it takes a speech from their mom to make the brothers stop thinking only of themselves. As each of these women doles out advice to the brothers (Stephan’s girlfriend Susie also offers some tough love), they start to realize they’ve completely gotten lost in the reason for the season. I know Hallmark has resisted using male protagonists up until fairly recently, but I applaud the fact that when we see men like the Brenner brothers (or the cast of The Groomsmen) onscreen modeling their vulnerability and flaws and addressing their anxieties, it’s something to appreciate for the way it normalizes a certain type of guy who is sincere and kind and is celebrated for that.
Parting Shot: The brothers and Thomas perform a choreographed dance for their family on Christmas day.
Performance Worth Watching: The fact that Margaret Colin is in this movie is not just a wink to Three Men and a Baby, which she was also in, the woman just makes the movie better in every way. (Admittedly, it’s always weird when Hallmark movies star people who starred on Veep because it’s hard to get their gloriously foul-mouthed performances from that show out of my head, but it also just shows their versatility, right?! This also applies to Diedrich Bader, who recently showed up in Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story.)
Colin is the perfect, elegant Gigi/grandma to Thomas, but she also delivers a little speech to her boys toward the end of the film that’s a beautiful little monologue about motherhood, as she begs her boys to see her not just as their mom, but as a person who’s desperate to be known as more than just “Mom,” too.
Memorable Dialogue: “They met online. Have you met the internet? Everything’s a lie,” Taylor says, critical of the man his mom is dating.
Our Call: STREAM IT! I’m going to be real here; the title is ridiculous, right? But it’s also the worst thing about the film, which is otherwise a terrific ensemble that brings back a cast of characters with lovely chemistry for a story that’s warm, witty, and fun.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Three Wiser Men and a Boy’ on the Hallmark Channel, Reuniting Some Of The Network’s Biggest Names For A Fun Family Dramedy appeared first on Decider.
