Hallmark Channel
Hallmark Channel’s The Groomsmen return for a second chance at love, this time with the story focused on Danny (Jonathan Bennett) and his obliviousness to his feelings for his best friend and financial manager Zack (Alexander Lincoln). What sets this movie apart from other multi-part productions Hallmark has out forth is that it organically fits within the structure of The Groomsmen: First Look, incorporating a large part of that film’s story into this one, and then moving things forward. Thank you!
The story of The Groomsmen: Second Chances, like the first movie, is told by the runaway bride to the Irish pub owner. After completing Pete’s story, she reveals there is more to her fleeing her own wedding but she has to circle back to before Pete’s wedding, in fact way back to him just meeting his future bride, Chelsea, to further explain the friendship of The Groomsmen, all leading up to the wedding. Importantly, the story focuses on Danny and how both Pete and Jackson can obviously see that he is into his friend and manager Zack. Danny denies it and even as they all travel to Bulgaria for Pete’s wedding, get lost in the forest, and make it back in time for the wedding, Danny still isn’t ready to admit that perhaps he does have feelings for Zack. Flashforward to some time past the wedding — and we eventually learn that Pete moved to Bulgaria to be with Chelsea instead of trying to maintain a long-distance marriage — and Jackson and Pete are still trying to convince Danny that he really likes Zack, to the point that Danny finally realizes he does and is ready to reveal his feelings. Until …
Zack reveals to Danny that he’s in a relationship with a guy named Nolan, whom the storyteller bride has mentioned, and … they’re getting married. This brings up all the emotions in Danny because how can he lay his own feelings on his friend and possibly complicate both their relationship and the relationship of Zack and Nolan? It seems that train has left the station and now Danny is on a mission to show Zack how he feels. Even after Zack asks him to be the best man at the wedding. And to help plan the wedding, because Nolan is very busy with a case — he’s a high-powered lawyer jockeying for a major upgrade to his career — so Zack knows the one person who can help is Danny. Great. But Danny still wants to tell Zack how he feels so he organizes a bachelor party at a rock wall climbing facility, knowing Nolan is afraid of heights. He will have the perfect opportunity at the top of the wall to tell Zack how he feels but … Nolan actually takes to the climbing and passes them before they get to the top. Sigh. Things become more complicated as Nolan becomes more consumed with his work, leaving all the planning to Zack and Danny, telling Danny to give Zack the wedding of his dreams — which Zack feels is a bit odd since it is their wedding, not just his. The plan is a destination wedding to Greece, and Danny and Zack pick a winery that they both visited once and enjoyed immensely. It may not be the greatest idea to hold a wedding in a place that holds more meaning for them than it does the grooms, but Zack is completely on board and Nolan doesn’t really care. When it comes time to visit Greece, Zack has to go alone because Nolan is working and Danny has his own work with the baseball team’s away games and he can’t go. But when Zack arrives in Greece, he’s shocked to learn the winery has been shut down because of back taxes owed, so everything they had in place is now locked up behind the gates. Danny puts his own responsibilities aside and flies to Greece to be with Zack and help figure things out.
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They do settle on another location, some ruins they also once visited, but the place is booked a year in advance. Danny calls Jackson and Pete, and Jackson actually has a way to help — one of his clients, a local woman named Ophelia, who is a social media influencer and author of a cookbook. Jackson sets up a meeting and Ophelia takes a liking to the two young men, assuming it is they who are about to tie the knot. They both think that notion is absurd, but she doesn’t think so even though she plays along. She prepares some dishes for them to sample, talks about her ex-husband, and when the subject of flowers comes up, she sends them to the local florist — and tells them not to talk to Constantinos, only to his brother. When they get to the shop, Constantinos is the only one there, his brother is out, but he has a chuckle when they tell him Ophelia said to only talk to his brother. He does not hold that against them as they don’t know the history, and he is more than happy to help with the flowers. But they still don’t have a location until they mention the ruins to Constantinos … who just happens to know someone who knows someone who can pull some strings to get the location. Now that things are in place, Danny once again tries to tell Zack how he feels by asking him to jump into the water with him, something Zack does not want to do. Jackson, his daughter Betty, and Pete and Chelsea show up for the wedding and at this point the guys tell Danny he’s waited too long and he cannot tell Zack how he feels because it would ultimately destroy that friendship. Danny is so conflicted that he’s considering not even taking his place as best man. Nolan finally arrives and the big day is about to start, but Danny is nowhere to be found. Jackson and Pete do locate him at the spot where he wanted to jump into the water with Zack, but can they convince him to come to the wedding … or will there be yet another surprise in store?
The Groomsmen: First Look did a fine job in setting up the story of The Groomsmen, but as it had to do all the heavy lifting of creating this universe, it was lacking the spark most Hallmark romances have, missing that ‘feel good’ aspect you have at the end. On the flip side, The Groomsmen: Second Chances is firing on all cylinders, deftly weaving the main story from First Look into the plot, and then moving forward to tell Danny’s story. It all came together so very well, bringing that spark, that sense of joy, some real emotion, ultimately making you feel good by the end. With the first two movies written by Rick Garman, and all three directed by Ron Oliver (who also contributes to the writing), these first two films have a real cohesion to them making them all the more enjoyable. The story is also given a chance to breathe and develop over time. Even though the story actually begins during Pete’s courtship and wedding, Danny’s story expands beyond that over many months, and eventually a year later which allows some space to make it all feel more believable. Hallmark has given us many multi-story movies over the past year, from the ‘Cherry Lane’ and ‘Christmas Unwrapped’ holiday movies, to the ‘Hearts Around the Table’ movies, but they all felt a bit disjointed from what was set up in their first movies. (We can’t really count Providence Falls among this group because that was actually a mini-series with a continuing storyline.) The Groomsmen: Second Chances set up the story in the first movie, and very skillfully continued that story, expanding the characters and their own situations. We can only hope the third film can continue this brilliant storytelling … and finally reveal who the runaway bride is and why she’s running away from The Groomsmen.
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The three actors portraying The Groomsmen — Jonathan Bennett, Tyler Hynes and BJ Britt — continue to inhabit their characters, making them feel like they truly have known each other for many, many years. As this is Danny’s story, Bennett takes center stage and gives Danny a wide range of emotions to make us laugh and cry and cheer him on (even though we know in the end someone is going to get hurt so true love can prevail). If there is one tiny complaint, it’s that Bennett has a tendency to go a bit over-the-top sometimes to make Danny a bit too wacky. He has some great moments of comedy and great moments of tenderness, like when he tries to teach the completely unathletic Zack how to hit a baseball … which he has to quickly step away from before things become too romantic. And he breaks our hearts when he finally does tell Zack how he feels and Zack seems to reject him … he is only minutes away from getting married, after all. So for the most part, Bennett is excellent, he just needs to rein in some of his more slapsticky tendencies and pulling faces. Alexander Lincoln is also very good as Zack, keeping his feelings very close to the vest. There are moments when he can gaze longingly at Danny and you know he’s feeling something, but he also portrays Zack as giddy when it comes to his impending marriage … even when he is also disappointed that Nolan is an absent groom for the most part, Lincoln making Zack seeming resolved to the situation, knowing it will be better once the case is done (but if Nolan gets that promotion, Zack doesn’t seem to think his husband will be even less present though he probably will). Both he and Bennett have great chemistry that smolders off the screen, and you can feel it in their quiet moments when all they have to do is look into each others’ eyes.
Also making The Groomsmen: Second Chances extremely enjoyable is Sue Kelvin as Ophelia. She brings a subtle humor to her role with some one-line zingers, under her breath asides and comical side-eye as she knows deep down that Zack and Danny are meant to be together. It’s like she’s just playing along with them, but subtly attempting to get either one of them to speak truthfully to the other. Andreas Karras is also fun as Constantinos, and it becomes clear at the end what his relationship is to Ophelia. Chloe Raphael as Jackson’s daughter Betty also gets a little more story development from the first movie, clearly having interest in the boy Milo (Oliver Shaw) while at Pete’s wedding, something only hinted at in the first film. Lily Dodsworth-Evans does a nice job as the bride/storyteller, and Anne Bird is delightful as her audience … even though the very long story is keeping her from opening the pub (she does get one moment to speak to the Groomsmen, lying that there’s no one in the pub but her).
All in all, The Groomsmen: Second Chances elevates everything that was set up in the first movie, giving audiences a heartfelt romance with a real spark, ultimately ending on the most joyful note possible, making us eager to see how it all ends with the third movie. Can that one top this? It will be difficult because The Groomsmen: Second Chances is a nearly perfect Hallmark romance (and if you can’t get past the fact that it’s two men in love, that’s your problem, not Hallmark’s).
The Groomsmen: Second Chances has a run time of 1 hour 23 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview – The Groomsmen: Second Chances
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