Fred Claus: Movie Review (2007)

Directed by David Dobkin, written by Dan Fogelman, 114 minutes, rated PG.

The new David Dobkin movie, "Fred Claus," serves audiences one lukewarm cup of holiday cheer.

It’s reindeer roadkill, a movie filled with stale jokes and rote storytelling that nevertheless attracted an A-list cast, three of whom have won Academy Awards, two of whom have been nominated for said awards, and all of whom might just be Pod people because it’s difficult to believe that they agreed to do any of this.

Tell me, how do you suppose the film’s producers got Paul Giamatti, Miranda Richardson, Kathy Bates, Rachel Weisz and Kevin Spacey to sign onto this thing? Was it just the money they laid down (probably), or did the actors think that because Academy Award-winning actor Billy Bob Thornton pulled off “Bad Santa,” perhaps they also could do the same for “Fred Claus”? The movie, after all, stars Vince Vaughn in the lead. Maybe they thought it would be crude and kooky, but in a good way.

It isn't.

Whatever the case, “Fred Claus" is day-old nog, with screenwriter Dan Fogelman taking the slimmest of premises and bloating it into a film that offers nearly two hours of comedic tedium. There are laughs here, but too many either are derivative or fall flat. Worse, you’ll find yourself waiting long stretches for each good joke to hit.

The film stars Vince Vaughn doing his best Vince Vaughn as Fred Claus, brother to Nicholas (Giamatti), a.k.a. Santa, whose fame and stature in the worldwide community has turned Fred into something of a grouch and a grinch.

He's a schmuck of the first order, so embittered by the fame, adoration and sainthood his brother has achieved, he has gone the other way. Saddled with debt and stuck in jail, Fred finds himself in the sort of pinch that necessitates him going to the North Pole to help out the big guy for the big night of gift-giving. This displeases his girlfriend (Weisz) and Mrs. Claus (Richardson), allows for his mother (Bates) to belittle him, smoothes the way for Kevin Spacey's mean-spirited efficiency expert, Clyde, to try to undo him, and also allows for the two brothers to come to terms.

This is, after all, a family movie with redemption on its mind, which it unleashes in big piles of forced sentiment at the end.

To be fair to the movie, production values are appropriately garish, John Michael Higgins' head does fine work while superimposed on a little person's body, and there is one sly scene that hints at the sharp, inspired movie "Fred Claus" could have been. It involves appearances by Roger Clinton, Stephen Baldwin and Frank Stallone all bemoaning their fates at being siblings to more famous brothers. The scene has an edge, it's funny and it comes close to the dark truth about brotherly rivalry that "Fred Claus" courts, but which it doesn't have the guts to fully skewer and explore.

Grade: C-