Fred Claus Is A Mean-Spirited Misfire Of Gigantic Proportions

Welcome to 25 Days Of Christmas Pop Culture! From now until Christmas Eve, I'll be tackling one piece of Christmas pop culture! It could be a book, movie, TV special, song....so long as it's festive for this time of the year, it'll be checked out in this daily column!

The success of Tangled begat Frozen. The success of Shrek begat Puss In Boots. When a movie studio finds financial favor in a certain property, original properties taking cues from that successful feature are just as common as sequels. So it's not hard to imagine Warner Bros. taking one look at all the money fellow Time Warner owned movie studio New Line Cinema made with Elf and wanting their own family Christmas movie with a big comedian. They decided to also take a cue from 2005 smash hit Wedding Crashers by reuniting Vince Vaughn with that movies director, David Dobkin.

And thus, Fred Claus was born.

I remember distinctly seeing this movie in a theater and being disappointed greatly by it. Ads had sold it as a comedy, but it turned into a melodramatic feature lacking in cheer or merriment. I likely wouldn't have minded a movie different from what the marketing suggested, except for the tiny fact that what I got was pretty damn middling. The reason for that low quality is where the Elf comparisons are more distinct; both derive their quality from their lead actors. Whereas Elf utilized Will Ferrell to gleeful success, Fred Claus has Vince Vaughn as a main character, and a pretty terrible character at that.

As you have likely guessed, Vaughn plays Fred Claus, the brother of Santa (Paul Giamatti), and Fred has spent his entire life being jealous of Santa. Here's where the film already runs into trouble; the opening establishes a tragic mood, depicting Santa as a kid inadvertently always upstaging a young Fred. Alright, that's a pretty good setup I guess, but Fred is just a jerk to everyone and anyone he comes across. Vaughn's comedic style is typically that of a used cars salesman talking at a 100 mph, and that shtick gets old fast since there's nothing else to his personality to latch onto.

In order to pay off money that Santa used to bail Fred out of jail, Fred must come work at the North Pole. Blatant sexism is on display as we enter this realm of magic, with extremely talented Elizabeth Banks being stuck as being nothing more than a romantic object, one always seen in skirts I might add. That bit of nastiness paves the way for more "shenanigans", as the films attempts at levity mainly center around "ninja elves". At least Giamatti makes for an inspired choice to play Santa, even if he doesn't get much of anything interesting to do. 

Kevin Spacey similarly finds himself with nothing interesting to do, though I guess it's sort of humorous to see his character want a Superman cape since Spacey played Lex Luthor in Superman Returns just a year and half prior to this films release. Spacey plays a conniving boardroom type of dude who intends to shut down the North Pole, which leads to a contrived scenario only Fred can solve. By the time the finale arrives, the movie shuts off all attempts to be comical, and while I'd admire a family film to so strictly center itself on pathos, Vince Vaughn just makes these emotional moments fall flat. I just don't buy any of his character development. 

Could you do worse for Christmas cinema than Fred Claus? Sure ya can, look no further than the likes Deck The Halls. But it is a shame this one fell so hard, especially since the premise, ads and obvious inspiration from Elf do generate promise of sorts. To it's credit, the film does try be more mature and thoughtful than you might expect, but considering how badly those attempts go, maybe they shouldn't have even tried. My disappointment with Fred Claus has unfortunately not softened in seven years; if anything, my frustration with the film has grown to the point where I consider it to be a notable holiday dud.

Tomorrow: Let's go home for the holidays, shall we?