Every year it seems like the Christmas season starts a little earlier than it did the year before. Retailers begin rolling out the red carpet for shoppers just about as fast as they pack away all the Halloween candy and costumes. Ever gone into Wal-Mart on November 1st? Halloween is like the dirty secret that never happened, and this year the twenty foot Christmas tree and bell ringers greeted me undoubtedly a few hours after the fall decorations had been taken down. Hollywood is no different, and each year you can bet that a slue of holiday movies will hit the box-office with little or no fanfare to support them. Much like their corporate counterparts, these films are here one day, and gone the next, and chances are, you won’t remember most of what happened in them. Perhaps this is the reason I staved off the chore of seeing Four Christmases until mid-December despite its Thanksgiving release. I knew it was one of those films that I would inevitably end up writing about, and correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Vince Vaughan’s Fred Clause just come out on DVD? The film pits Oscar-winning Reese Witherspoon alongside Vince Vaughan for some formula-based holiday mayhem.
For quite some time now, Brad and Kate have made their annual Christmas vacation about spending time with each other, away from their unsuspecting families. This year is no different. When the young and energetic couple’s flight to Fiji is cancelled at the last minute, they are forced to spend Christmas with their families. What you need to know is that Brad and Kate have built their entire relationship upon making their own rules, and this means avoiding any type of serious commitment. It’s why they still haven’t tied the knot, and are prone to spending the holidays sipping mai tais rather than playing board games with their families. Hmmm. Seems like an hour and a half is just enough time for these characters to learn a valuable lesson about family. Oh yeah, both characters come from divorced families as well. Hence the title.
Here’s the point. If you’re a sucker for Vince Vaughan, (which I admittedly am) then go see this movie. If you’re with the fam during the holiday and trying to decide on a movie to go to, you could probably do worse. Just don’t expect to remember much of what you saw a year later. Especially if, God forbid, Vaughan stars in Fred Clause 2: The Buy-out Clause in 2009. At times you will probably laugh, but you just might glance at your watch a few times as well. I did both. The film boasts a surprisingly talented all-star cast. I won’t name names here because to do so would ruin the fun of meeting the family members yourself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m headed off to the living room to dust off some Christmas nostalgia and put It’s a Wonderful Life into the DVD player.
2.5/5
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