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Fred Claus
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Review #561 of 365
Movie Review of Fred Claus (2007) [PG] 116 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $9.00
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 9 November 2007
Time: 10:30 pm
DVD Release Date: 25 November 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Soundtrack: order the CD below
Directed by: David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers)
Screenplay by: Dan Fogelman (Cars) story by Jessie Nelson and Dan Fogelman
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Vince Vaughn (Into the Wild) • Paul Giamatti (The Nanny Diaries) • John Michael Higgins (Evan AlmightyEvan Almighty) • Miranda Richardson (Paris, je t'aime) • Rachel Weisz (Eragon) • Kathy Bates (Bee Movie) • Trevor Peacock ("The Vicar of Dibley" ) • Ludacris (Hustle & Flow) • Elizabeth Banks (Spider-Man 3) • Christian Hansen (debut) • Kevin Spacey (Superman Returns)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Click to see photos from the Premiere of Fred Claus
Click to read the spoiler points for Fred Claus
"Ho, Ho,…Hmmm?" What starts of with some promise, quickly unravels as this homespun tale of Santa's older brother Fred enters the realm of the macabre. Fred Claus, directed by David Dobkin from a script by Dan Fogelman featuring the combined talents of Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Rachel Weisz,
and Academy Award®-winning Katy Bates and Kevin Spacey, worked only insofar as none of these actors were on screen. That's right, it pretty much doesn't work except when it's just the elves dancing around and then only because the special effects used to make the life-sized actors of John Michael Higgins and Ludacris look elf-sized. Where's all the Christmas spirit and winter holiday joy? It got left back in the core idea that this story would be about Santa's older brother who, because of a childhood run-in with his 'saintly' younger brother, becomes a bitter, angry, resentful, isolated virtual conman. Now, he's not all bad. He does befriend a neighbor boy sharing nuggets of 'wisdom' with him about the selfish nature of Santa Claus—'wisdom' that comes back to haunt him when he spews it back to kids in the orphanage where he's placed when Child Protective Services learns that he's been living alone since his father died leading to a brawl and his subsequent emergence as the #1 kid naughtiest kid on earth on Santa's electronic naughty board. Nonetheless, he's basically fairly good for nothing now whipping up birthday plans for his girlfriend, Wanda (Rachel Weisz) out of thin air off a billboard visible out the coffee shop window, dressing up as a mock Salvation Army® Santa bell ringer and fleecing people for money to pay the $50,000 he needs to open an OTB Parlor across from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and filling the world with his smug repartee as a Repo man. Oh, that childhood incident really, really traumatized him. It's so bad that he's not seen anyone in his family in decades—yeah, when Nick Claus actually became a Saint (aka Santa) he and everyone in his family (parents, siblings, and their spouses) are suddenly endowed with ever-lasting life. So, it's all the more awkward when he gets arrested and has to hit his brother up for bail. Being the saintly type, Santa (Paul Giamatti) acquiesces to a deal over the strenuous urgings for tough love by his wicked-looking wife, Annette (Miranda Richardson) whereby Fred shall earn $55,000 working in Santa's factory for a few days before Christmas. So, Fred arrives via reindeer-powered sleigh at the North Pole ready to complete the deal and save his financial life. Things start off badly when the Elven Secret Service suspects he's out to get Santa and does a number on him. Shortly thereafter, he feels ambushed by the arrival of his Mom (Kathy Bates) and Dad (Trevor Peacock). But, Nick calms him down in the midst of the arrival of a mysterious efficiency expert named Clyde (Kevin Spacey) who has threatened Santa's operation with a 3-Strikes and You're Closed Forever policy. It seems that letters from kids have been asking for more and more, and Santa's been able to deliver less and less and even less of the actual requests, and this is riling some mysterious board that has also put the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny on notice. 'Borrowing' way too much of the mythology of the North Pole from Disney's Santa Clause trilogy right down to the importance of snow globes and menacing characters threatening to end Christmas joy, as much as the trailer and ad campaign makes it look fresh, new, and Wedding Crasher funny, the film sadly just is not.
The beginning of the downfall began, quite simply, with the casting. Paul Giamatti has been made to look like Santa, but not the jolly, bowl-full of jelly, hot-cocoa drinking Saint Nick off a Coca-Cola® can. No, instead, the kind you'd expect to be popping out of the closet in the dark slasher comedy, Black Christmas who ends up impaled on a Christmas tree but not until he offs all but one sorority girl. Vince Vaughn cleans up his act quite a bit, but then, who is he? It did seem to help with his facial expressions because after nearly every line he looks exactly like he's biting his tongue so as not to say what's really on his mind. Miranda Richardson plays her role as if she's Lady MacBeth reincarnated, not the loving and generous spouse of the world's most generous soul. When she's not running about cackling that he's eating too much, she's creeping about like a shrew not yet tamed. Then there's Kevin Spacey. There is no possible way actually to describe what happens with this combination of a character who's harboring some deep, dark, emotional, childhood trauma with intentions at last to get back at Santa Claus with an actor who with but one eloquently spoken single word can send spine-tingling, absolute zero chills down your spine.
"… diabolical."
The result is a super villain, hmm, sort of like the one he just over-played in Superman Returns but now in what some people suggested was kind of supposed to be a wonderfully funny and entertaining family comedy for the holidays? Well, a bit more on this in the spoiler points, but suffice it to say, that somebody needs to remind the casting agents that Mr. Spacey is a few shades away from being one of the greatest and most powerful dramatic actors of his generation, and only to be cast in roles that require his skill and are worthy of it. This was not it. All of this was sort of a round about way of pointing out the film's blatant casting problems: mostly the wrong cast playing the wrong parts. The notable exceptions to these were again John Michael Higgins who does a smashing job as Santa's Head Elf with an inferiority complex, Willie, and the elf DJ who only seems to like one Christmas Carol, "Here Comes Santa Claus", Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges. Had the movie been all about these two, and featuring pretty much just these two, it might have been closer to something enjoyable to watch. The second area of problems arises from the story, of course, as they always do. It's so odd that a writer who could come up with one of the most brilliant scripts ever for an animated film, despite losing to Happy Feet, that being Dan Fogelman's
Cars, would come up with this macabre tale. Perhaps it would be one thing if the film were raunchy and pitched at teens and 20-30 somethings. But, there's no way Fred Claus should be thought of as a 'great' film for the whole family.
This is not to say that Fred Claus isn't funny—there are some funny parts, it's not to say there aren't some good lessons to be learned—there are and even Santa's entire operational philosophy comes under scrutiny and eventually eradicated; but it is to say that, as a whole, the film is very dark and not a whole lot of fun if one is expecting holiday cheer and good will toward fellow humankind. Does this make it bad film? Well, it is bad at fulfilling expectations. The story, despite the positives, is far too derivative, recycled, and almost too non-formulaic which might seem like an oxymoron when applied to a film but if you see it, you'll understand. It's as if it goes out of it's way to push buttons that really never needed to be pushed just to prove a holier-than-thou point. There is a wide disparity in the positive direction when it comes to the talent to requirement ratio of the cast members to the characters. In other words, they were mostly too grand for these characters, lots of talent—Katy Bates and Rachel Weisz notably—were complete wasted, or miscast—as in Paul Giamatti should stick to playing horrific hit men made for him like he did in Shoot 'Em Up, Miranda Richardson should play evil double agents, and Kevin Spacey should only take roles where it will make sense for his peers to give him little statues. In a word, the film is diabolical.
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Cast Members
Vince Vaughn • Paul Giamatti • John Michael Higgins
Miranda Richardson • Rachel Weisz • Kathy Bates
Elizabeth Banks
Christian Hansen
Director
David Dobkin
Writer
Dan Fogelman
Review-lite
Fred Claus (2007) [max of 150 words]
If you're searching for Santa Clause 4, Fred Claus is not it, far from it. Rather, director David Dobkin's take on the curmudgeonly life of Santa's older brother, Fred (Vince Vaughn) plummets into the macabre with grandiose actors playing somewhat more humble characters in a story that seems like it's working way to hard to be funny with mostly non-funny moral lessons and actors more suited to portraying the world's most villainous crime gang.
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