Fred Claus (Frank's take)
01/12/2007 . Source: Frank Ochieng 
In Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton's obnoxious antics were cleverly utilised as an undercurrent cynicism for the holiday hoopla designed to plant a plastic smile on the consumerism craze that is the festive Christmas season. Now, says Frank, the anaemically kooky coal-in-the-stocking comedy Fred Claus feebly employs the same tactics ... but with less than mediocre results. Buy Fred Claus in the USA - or Buy Fred Claus in the UK  Vince Vaughn, much like Thornton, has been known for his cinematic smugness and fun-loving flippancy. Predictably, Vaughn is slated to flop through the flakes as the latest hostile hipster to let the Yuletide spirit tame his empty soul. Admittedly, Fred Claus has its share of cheap chuckles. Still, this dud has all the holiday cheer of swallowing a bowl of stale eggnog with a stubborn case of strep throat.
Filmmaker David Dobkin (Vaughn's "Wedding Crashers" director) distributes unevenly the loony laughs and syrupy sentiments. Couple this with Vaughn's familiar all-year-round humbug routine and an extremely high-powered cast (sporting notable Oscar winners and nominees alike) stuck in throwaway frolicking entertainment and you have a recipe for a lacklustre taste akin to a chomp on a hardened fruitcake.
Screenwriter Dan Fogelman fails to inspire his script with anything substantially whimsical that would give Fred Claus its riotous rhythm. Apparently everything seems as clunky as a Christmas ham which includes interminable sight gags, spiritless snowball fights, distracting Christmas tunes, countless toys and elves as the run-of-the-mill props-all designed to promote the smart-alecky tone of a mismatched movie that undersells Vaughn's forced naughtiness.
So the Cain-and-Abel is patterned as such: resentful Fred Claus (Vaughn) has spent a lifetime in misery watching younger goody two-shoes brother Nicholas (Paul Giamatti) get all the accolades for being generous and giving. Of course Claus mother (Kathy Bates) shows preferential treatment to Nick (soon to be christened St. Nick or Santa) that makes Fred twice as bitter towards his sibling rival. Nevertheless, sainthood is bestowed upon Nick as Fred travels down his own wicked path of self-destruction.
In modern-day Chicago, repo man Fred is a riff raffish rogue that has no respect for the well wishers around him. Fred has no shame whatsoever and it isn't out of the realm for him to dress up as a Salvation Army volunteer and steal the dollars from well-meaning donators (actually, he does indeed resort to this twisted larceny). Due to Fred's constant brush with the law, he's thrown in the clinker and ponders his dream of developing a gambling casino. First, he has to obtain some fast money and hatch a plan to achieve this certain goal. This means-heaven forbid-that Fred must crawl back to his beloved bro Nick back at the North Pole and partake in the saintly duties.
Fred does have his personalized entourage (angry Santa mob excluded). There's his British babe girlfriend Wanda (Rachel Weisz), a down-and-out meter maid that is fed up with Fred's wildness and overall bad attitude. Also, Fred's sidekick is a black minor named Slam (Bobb'e J. Thompson), a convenient verbal punching bag to the cantankerous Claus.
Naturally, Fred and Nick reunite and the bickering abounds thus making the North Pole a combat zone of sorts. Fred's job is to stamp the listings of children to determine their "naughty or nice" qualifications. Exceedingly, Fred makes an impact on the folks up north. In some cases, he's tolerated by Nick's trusted head elf Willie (John Michael Higgins) and establishes a feisty-and-friendly rapport with the North Pole's DJ elf (played by rapper-actor Chris "Ludicrous" Bridges).
In other instances, Fred is an insufferable bore when it comes to his sister-in-law Annette (Miranda Richardson) that can't stand his guts to say the least. Fred would soon become the foil of bespectacled bully Clyde Northcutt (Kevin Spacey), an efficiency expert with the dubious intentions on shutting down Santa's smooth-running operation as an evil-minded impulse.
Will Fred and Nick ever learn to play nice as battling brothers? Can Fred seize redemption and help Willie get his "special" Christmas present in the form of cutie pie Charlene (Elizabeth Banks)? Is Fred the grown prototype for the neglected kids that are misunderstood by jolly St. Nick and their judgmental parents/caretakers?
Actually, there's a pretty good concept behind Fred Claus that's rather unique-Santa having a black sheep sib that wallows in the shadows of his virtuous heart. This could have been extremely hilarious and heartfelt had Dobkin not relied so much on the stilted devices of the movie-namely the drippy dialogue and synthetically constructed pathos that Vaughn's Fred unconvincingly is touched by after the manufactured madcap of wackiness has subsided. In fact, the simultaneous mean-spiritedness and wishy-washy sentiments are never balanced or in sync with the nutty proceedings at hand. The recycled shenanigans feel overwrought in some flashes yet undernourished in other considerable areas.
The compare-and-contrast gimmickry of showing Nick's golden saint to Fred's party-hearty sinner gets lost in the fluffy shuffle of the tedious platitudes being put forth...that is...the notion being the soggy silliness that's supposed to define this hollow holiday hokum as endearingly insightful.
The plain truth is that Vaughn's blustery bad boy tomfoolery weakly registers and Giamatti's pleasant and puffy Nick is about as wooden as the sled he glides into the cool night air. The special effects (specifically the regular-noggin-on-the-computerized-midget-body visual) appear cheesy and creepy while borrowing its sophomoric imagery from the ridiculous likes of the Wayanses' forgettable cold cut comedy Little Man.
Usually the loving lug persona works its manic magic for the off-kilter Vaughn. However, in the toothless slapstick Fred Claus it is merely "ho ho ho" and a bottle of dumb!
Frank Ochieng
(c) Frank Ochieng 2007 |
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