Movie Review - 'Fred Claus'

Fred Claus

Starring Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Spacey
Directed by David Dobkin
Rated PG

Eavesdropping can get you into trouble, although recently, my eavesdropping may have gotten Vince Vaughn into trouble. I overheard two men likely in their early 30s saying they'd grown tired of the Vince Vaughn character, the wisecracking, fun-loving guy thrown out to the curb of life who ultimately can't schmooze his way out of his predicament.

"Yeah, it's like how I got sick of Ben Stiller," said one man to the other, who said, "Mm-hm. I still like Will Ferrell, though."

By and large, those three comic actors, plus Owen Wilson, have been dubbed "The Frat Pack," and each one, with the exception of Ferrell who has tried to do a couple interesting things along the way, has stayed true to a perspective each should have outgrown. There's no reason Vince Vaughn, at 37, should be playing the Vince Vaughn he played at 30. Just grow up. Audiences will only buy it for so long. See The Heartbreak Kid.

And it used to be that these characters could overcome bad scripts or bad movies, but not when their reactions are too predictable, as is the case with the messy, unwelcoming holiday film, Fred Claus. Accepting for a moment that Santa Claus has a brother named Fred and that he's the Vince Vaughn character from all the movies, there's still an awful lot to put up with in this movie.

For starters, is that Paul Giamatti under that Santa beard? Oh, the hits just keep on comin'. Secondly, there's absolutely no point on the map Fred Claus wants to hit. Does it want to be a bright holiday movie that can mock itself and Christmas too, like Ferrell's Elf, which this movie clearly robs, or does it want to take the Merry out of it altogether like Bad Santa? As Ben Affleck learned with Surviving Christmas, there really is no middle ground. But because Vaughn's one character can't fit in either one of those scenarios it tries to be both, while never letting go of the character that undermines everything.

The casting continues to trouble you when Kevin Spacey shows up as an efficiency expert who might shut down Santa, Fred Claus' brother, and when Elizabeth Banks, the girl-next-door highlight from Invincible and the invincible nympho from The 40-Year-Old Virgin just stands around in a cutesy Santa skirt waiting to sing backup or something. Oh, and Rachel Weisz plays Vaughn's on-again, off-again girlfriend. I hope, at the very least, the checks cashed.

All the while Vaughn swings for the fences throwing in outtake riffs from Wedding Crashers and Old School that didn't make the cut then and certainly don't now.