Fred Claus is not an entirely bad picture, but it is a decidedly bland one.
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Christmas movies generally fall into two broad categories: The traditional ones like "It's a Wonderful Life," "A Christmas Carol," and "A Christmas Story," and the gimmicky ones, usually comedies, like "The Santa Clause," "Elf," and "Fred Claus." It's not that either category is any better than the other; rather, it's how good the individual films turn out. In the case of "Fred Claus," it didn't turn out too well.
The gimmick in 2007's "Fred Claus" is that Santa has a brother. And while Santa is steadfastly nice, his brother is definitely naughty. The movie explores well-trod "Scrooge" territory in showing us a bah-humbug type who turns his life around by learning the true spirit of Christmas. Certainly, one cannot complain about the sincerity of the message, if only the idea weren't so timeworn and so wholly expected. This is a film whose plot a person could foresee from beginning to end and probably never miss a shot.
Fred and Nicholas Claus are born several years apart in a tiny cottage in the Bavarian woods (or some fairy-tale place) many centuries ago. Fred is the older brother and loves his new little brother very much. For a while, that is. Until sibling rivalry develops. (Remember Tommy Smothers: "Mom always liked you best"?) The younger brother starts acting so nobly that his parents begin to show a clear preference for him over Fred. Nick is the perfect child, the one his parents adore. As the years pass, Fred begins to resent his brother Nick for always behaving so generously, so magnanimously, so unselfishly toward those around him. While Fred becomes bitter, Nick becomes a saint. And we all know what becomes of saints: They become frozen in time. Fred and Nick and their parents stop aging, and Saint Nick gets the job of delivering Christmas gifts to good little girls and boys. Meanwhile, Fred becomes a repo man in present-day Chicago. So while Nick gives things away, Fred takes things back. Bah, humbug.
When Fred gets into trouble with the police and winds up in jail, he asks Nick to bail him out. Nick agrees to loan Fred the money and then some, but only if Fred will come to the North Pole and help him out with this year's Christmas chores. Fred reluctantly agrees.
The film pretty much wastes a good cast on mediocre characters. Vince Vaughn plays Fred Claus, and the actor does so in his usual slick, fast-talking, wisecracking, con-man style. For about ninety-nine percent of the story, the character is a jerk; most unlikable. He's supposed to be a Scrooge, but he's even more unpleasant than Dickens's Scrooge because Fred shows us he's at least a little bit human, and that hurts even worse. Without a miraculous Christmas Eve intervention, Dickens's Scrooge could never have turned his emotionless life around, but in Fred's case we see in him somebody who could be a nicer, better person but refuses to be. It makes us disapprove of him all the more.
Paul Giamatti plays Fred's brother, Nick (or Santa to most of us). Giamatti is a fine actor but seems terribly ill at ease in this part. He's supposed to be a saint whose patience is being tried every moment, mostly by his brother, until he finally goes over the edge. It seems an odd Christmas movie that shows us the real Santa Claus having a nervous breakdown. At least when Billy Bob Thornton played "Bad Santa," he was of the department-store variety, not the genuine article.
Kathy Bates and Trevor Peacock play Mother and Papa Claus, probably chosen because they look suited for the roles but pretty much doing little or nothing to help out the proceedings. Rachel Weisz plays Wanda, Fred's English girlfriend. Ms. Weisz really is English, but why the filmmakers force her to speak in so broad an English accent is anybody's guess. I suppose they didn't want audiences missing the fact that she was from England, but what does her being English have to do with anything? Miranda Richardson, who is also English, plays Nick's wife and speaks with an American accent. Go figure. John Michael Higgins plays Willie, Santa's head elf. He's in love with Charlene (Elizabeth Banks), Santa's "little helper" and a knockout blonde, but Willie is too shy and too insecure about his size to say anything to her. This subplot basically just pads out the story and becomes an excuse for what we know is eventually going to happen.
The villain of the piece is Clyde Northcut, devilishly played by Kevin Spacey. Thank goodness for Spacey for without him we wouldn't have much of a movie. After all, the villains are often the best parts of any melodrama. Northcut is a stone-cold efficiency expert bent on destroying Santa and his whole operation. He works for the board of directors that oversees Santa's holiday activities, and if Santa doesn't make and deliver the requisite number of toys for Christmas, he will fire him and move the entire enterprise to the South Pole under somebody's else's guidance.
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[release]25183[/release]