Fred Claus (2007)

Sometimes you can have a good idea and make a rather poor movie (Bruce Almighty), and other times you have a bad idea that still makes a very good movie (BASEketball). This film is what happens when you have a bad idea and even worse skills, so the result is just horrid.

But how can it be? This film stars Vince Vaughn, Kevin Spacey, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti, Kathy Bates and the multi-talented Miranda Richardson? Surely some redeeming features must remain? Not really no. Vaughn is just an ass. And not a funny as like 2 scenes of Jim Carrey as The Grinch or 7 seasons of Hugh Laurie as Dr. House. Just a whining asshole that refuses to take responsibility for anything. As for the rest, they have either hugely uninteresting characters (Tim Allen had better dialogues as a Santa than Giamatti does here) or they're reduced to charicatures (Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates). And most of the dialogue is either bickering or full-fledged quarreling. Exasperating. There is such a thing as balancing your cast, and here every single one is either a whining loser, or just a dick.

Oh! And if you're making a comedy: Some jokes would be nice. There aren't enough funny jokes here to feed a slug in an iron lung. The closest they come is a support group for people with famous brothers. Unfortunately, that also ends in a narcissistic rant, devoid of creativity and good jokes. I can't even remember having snickered during this flick and that is an exceptionally bad sign.

But there is still something that could save it! Does it have som Christmas spirit? Actually, yes. A very nice scene of about 45 seconds. Nicely set up, very fine acting by Giamatti and Richardson with just the right mood. What it lacks, though, is a believable and finely tuned transition as Christmas-hating protagonists need. Here, they just toss some morals together and hope nobody notices how poorly executed it is.

I hate Christmas myself, and I am still annoyed by how horrible this is. I can not for the life of me understand which audience they are trying to pass this off to. Surely not kids, as the tone is all wrong, and no grown man or woman would be stupid enough to accept this as quality. If there had been some good jokes, you could sell it to the crude and simple. As it is, this is perhaps the worst Christmas film ever made.


2/10