'Fred Claus': Ho Ho Humbug

By Martha Brockenbrough
MSN Cinemama

Video: MSN's Dish Diva Interviews Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti

Apparently there's some news about saints that will take the Catholic Church by surprise. For starters, you don't have to be dead to be a saint. And, you are granted eternal life. What's more, your parents, wife and brother get to enjoy immortality, even if they're miles from saintly behavior.

This is how St. Nicholas -- better known as Santa -- has managed to deliver Christmas presents to kids across the centuries. And how his brother, Fred Claus, has become an angry repo man in Chicago, gleefully removing oversized flat-screen television sets from the bedrooms of little girls with deadbeat parents.

Sibling rivalry, people. You never outgrow it.

When we catch up with Fred and Nick (Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti, respectively), both are in a bit of trouble. Fred doesn't have the cash he needs to close a business deal, let alone make bail after an ill-advised panhandling scheme. And Nick faces a visit from an efficiency expert named Clyde (Kevin Spacey) who's threatening to shut the whole North Pole operation down, outsourcing everything to the other side of the globe.

It's a great setup, and with those three names alone, it should be a great movie. Add in Rachel Weisz, Kathy Bates, Miranda Richardson and John Michael Higgins, and the result is like a too-small holiday sweater: such a nice thought, but an unintentional, unsuitable downer. You're probably better off staying home and drinking eggnog. You might regret each equally, but at least the eggnog tastes good going down.

What's in It for Kids?

"Fred Claus" has one virtue for kids: It doesn't destroy the Santa myth. There's a fantastic North Pole set, complete with elf-sized houses and adult-beverage establishments. There's a snow globe that lets Santa monitor behavior. And while he doesn't keep a naughty/nice list, he does use a filing system to make sure kids get the toy of their dreams.

This, in itself, is a relief. It's shocking how many movies aimed at kids give away the goods on Santa, if only to restore them somewhat with a smarmy ending.

It's also rated PG, for mild language and some rude humor. Apparently the good people at the MPAA who are so concerned with mild language were taking a bathroom break when Fred was bashing Salvation Army Santas in the face with toys. And when ninja elves attacked Fred when they suspected he had a gun. And when Fred stuck a much smaller elf in a closet when the elf played music he didn't like, and later when Fred choked his brother after a snowball fight.

What's disturbing about this sort of violence in an ostensibly family film is that it takes situations kids might face -- being exasperated with a peer or being angry at a sibling -- and resolves them with violence that is supposed to be funny, but ultimately isn't. When a movie is released the same week as two major studies that link observation of on-screen violence to later aggression in boys, it's hard to see this film as a holiday gift to kids.

The filmmakers would have been better off aiming the story squarely at grown-ups and unleashing the full, dark comic potential of the cast.

What's in It for Grown-ups?

On paper, this must have been a brilliant film. The only people who don't relate on some level to sibling rivalry are only children. And what a cast: two Oscar winners, a nominee and Vince Vaughn, who has one of the best comic personas on-screen.

At least in this regard, "Fred Claus" doesn't disappoint. Vaughn is funny as usual, and instead of making his character seem like a lying jerk, he manages to sound both sleazy and honest at the same time. He walks a fine line, and he does it well.

Richardson, whose latest family fare was her fantastic portrayal of Rita Skeeter in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," is funny as Nick's wife, especially when she's keeping him from his beloved cookies. The brief fireworks between her and Bates, who plays Nick's mother, are spot-on.

Giamatti, meanwhile, imbues his Santa with the same watery-eyed, beleaguered air he used to such good effect in "Sideways." Only instead of worrying about the fate of his novel, he's worried that he's about to lose his clutch on Christmas giving.

What would be the problem with that? Would that end his immortality? Would kids have to go without presents? The movie never says.

And this is the central problem of the movie from a grown-up point of view. Who does Clyde work for? Why do they care about how Santa does his thing? Why isn't it more worrisome that kids are getting greedy, as Clyde points out with his efficiency pie charts? And since when would it be more efficient to shut down the North Pole and reopen in the South Pole? What a waste of infrastructure.

While we do eventually learn what's motivating the very grinchy Clyde, the larger question of who sent him to hassle Santa remains. It's too big an issue to dangle, and it's a distraction.

There is a funny side-story about what it's like to have a celebrity sibling. While this felt too depressing for kids, there wasn't enough of this sort of thing for grown-ups. And that's the bummer of this movie: It reaches for a wide audience and fails to really grab anyone.

You might be tempted to call out to St. Erasmus, patron saint of stomach pains. But you can't. In the real world, saints aren't immortal. The guy better known as St. Elmo -- the inspiration behind the Rob Lowe classic "St. Elmo's Fire" -- died around 303. So saints aren't immortal after all. And unfortunately, "Fred Claus" won't be either.

---

Martha Brockenbrough is author of "It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond." She's also founder of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. She writes a fun-with-kids column for Cranium.com, as well as an educational humor column for Encarta. Check out her Web site.

Sound off: Comment on this story | Also: Features archive