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Starring
Vince Vaughn
Paul Giamatti
Rachel Weisz
Kathy Bates
Miranda Richardson
Kevin Spacey
Elizabeth Banks
Directed by
David Dobkin
Heith's Grade:
B+Rated PG for mild language and some rude humor
a review by Heith Carnahan
The Rundown
Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) is a Chicago repo man who's about as loved as... well, a repo man can be. He's got aspirations of greatness, though, and opening the casino he's always wanted will first require $50k to reserve the space. When trying to "raise" the money Salvation Army-style lands him in the slammer, he has no one to call but his estranged older brother Nicholas (Paul Giamatti) to bail him out and possibly loan him the "other" money he needs.
Bail is no problem, but Nicholas is going to make him work for the rest. You see, Nicholas is actually St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, and if he's going to spot Fred the money he needs, Fred will have to come to the North Pole and work for it. The Christmas season is coming up, and they're going to need all the help they can get.
Especially so since the board (yes, there's a board) has sent an efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) to make sure things run smoothly this year. Apparently childrens' gift requests per letter have skyrocketed, and the board is already considering shutting down Santa and outsourcing a lot of the toymaking to the South Pole if things aren't up to snuff up north.
Fred Claus was finished and ready for a Christmas 2006 release, but for some reason, they shelved it until 2007.
High-energy, low cheese
And of course, all hell breaks loose once Fred arrives at the North Pole; things have never exactly been normal between the two brothers, and Vaughn and Giamatti have a very yin-and-yang quality about them that keeps the comedic aspect of the film running very, very smoothly. And at nearly two hours long, that's a necessary thing. The even better news is that Fred Claus can be neatly divided into three distinct acts, which keeps things fresh and energetic: Fred's predicament, his work at Santa's workshop, and then his stepping in to help Santa overcome certain disaster. There are so many high points in the movie, I hardly know where to begin.
So here are the high points of the high points. First, it's funny -- almost surprisingly so -- and don't let the tame PG rating fool you. I'll be the first to admit I was skeptical of a Vince Vaughn comedy that's not rated at least PG-13, but this one works and we owe it almost entirely to Vaughn himself. On top of that, the film gives us something to care about -- because everyone cares about Christmas, right? And who wants to see Santa shut down by a bunch of stiff, arrogant bureaucrats? It's true, at first we don't realize how real the threat to the North Pole is, but we soon get a good idea when Spacey breaks out his three-strikes notepad, and then things really take off.
Probably the best thing about the film is how high-energy it is absolutely throughout. Even hilarious, over-the-top romps like Wedding Crashers tend to lose steam at some point when the filmmakers realize they've got to move the story along. But Fred Claus doesn't fall victim to this. The last act is as funny, energetic, and inspired as the first, and by the time it's over, you can even add "touching" to the mix, because there's some of that too.
The special effects, incidentally, are nothing short of spectacular and tend to add an element of reality to an otherwise completely mythological figure. The sequences of the sleigh soaring over major cities and rivers and trying to outrun the sunrise are so well-done, you'll forget for a moment you're watching a family comedy.
One side note. . .
The one completely inexplicable choice the filmmakers made involved CGI manipulation of the elves. Any elf in the movie that had any major speaking part at all had his head digitally removed and replaced by that of a recognizable, established actor. My hatred of CGI notwithstanding, I found this technique to be as distracting as it is unnecessary, and almost insulting when you consider a Little Person had to block and act the scene out, only to have his face removed from the frame completely. Blech. You had to find a whole mess of Little People to begin with -- you couldn't find two that could act?The Bottom Line
Do not miss Fred Claus if you have any interest whatsoever in Christmas comedies or Vince Vaughn. A comedy you can take anyone to see and that gives you two solid, quality hours is a rare find indeed.
-- Heith Carnahan, heith @ movie-popcorn.com