‘FRED Claus” is not like a lump of coal in your stocking. Coal is useful; you can burn it. This movie is more like a lump of something Blitzen left behind after eating a lot of Mexican food.
In a reverse “Elf,” Vince Vaughn – who looks like he slept on or perhaps under a bus – plays Santa’s schlub brother, who inexplicably works as a repo man in Chicago. Needing bail money, he calls his despised brother St. Nicholas (Paul Giamatti) for help, at which point he is inexplicably invited to visit the North Pole just before Christmas.
Fred has an inexplicable girlfriend (how many gorgeous British meter maids have you met in Chicago? Why did Oscar winner Rachel Weisz take this gig as the standard “little woman”?). He has an inexplicable best friend – a small black child he keeps in his apartment as a kind of pet or unpaid sidekick. He teaches the kid not to believe in Santa. Bad Fred!
Forty minutes into a movie that seems to last as long as winter, after Vaughn goes to the North Pole and does some elf shtick that works about as well as turpentine-flavored eggnog (he can’t fit into their tiny beds and is beaten up by elf-ninjas), a plot finally kicks in.
A clipboard-wielding efficiency consultant (Kevin Spacey) threatens to shut down Santa’s operation if he breaks any three regulations. Since when does giving stuff away make you have to answer to anyone? Plus, because the consultant merely fabricates foul-ups whenever he wants, there’s no reason to get interested in whether he can catch Fred doing something wrong.
There is more plot in the average Geico commercial, so the movie pads itself with detours into sketch ideas that don’t develop past the basic concept. A support group for brothers of celebs? OK. But nothing funny happens. Roger Clinton shows up, but Roger doesn’t share his brother’s main gift – for acting.
The interplay of innocence and cynicism that made “Elf” a classic is mangled by “Wedding Crashers” director David Dobkin, who can’t keep his characters straight. Santa is alternately an above-it-all saint and a harried middle-manager (who tries to run over Fred with his snowmobile).
Dobkin delivers shtick that makes no sense. Why would Mrs. Santa read “Gingerbread for Dummies”? Wouldn’t she be the world expert on that? When Fred’s girlfriend discovers that Santa really exists, she doesn’t seem shocked – even though this is the kind of worlds-colliding stuff the movie should be feasting on.
Like a starlet who crashes into a tree while leaving rehab, the movie turns into a rip-off of the equally rancid “Santa Clause” series when the Spacey character fires Santa and shuts down his workshop.
At this point, Fred decides to take action. He jumps on the sleigh and gets the elves to mass-produce, at the last minute, the simplest possible items for every kid – a baseball bat for boys and a hula hoop for girls. A baseball bat? For every boy in the world?
What is little Jacques or Heinrich supposed to do with that? And doing the bare minimum to get by counts as celebrating the spirit of Christmas in only one place – the multiplex.
Vaughn, who seems to be improvising his own lines, works on the theory that anything is funny if you say it fast. He never told his girlfriend he had a brother, for instance, but when he has to admit it, he jabbers, “TechnicallyIhaveabrotherwehavethesamemotherandfatherbutIneverfeltlikeIhadabrother.”
The more desperately he lunges for laughs, the less amusing he is. He’s not just pathetic but actively anti-funny, like dengue fever or bacterial meningitis or Andy Rooney.
Running time: 115 minutes. Rated PG (mild crude humor). At the E-Walk, the 84th Street, the Magic Johnson, others.