Review: Fred Claus

The Info Bit


Genre: Comedy
Starring: Vince Vaughan, Paul Giamatti, Rachel Weisz, Kevin Spacey
Director: David Dobkin
Run Time: 111 Mins
Rating: PG
Year: 2007
Extras On DVD: Cut Scenes, Commentary




Film four and the final one of my Christmas Seasonal Film fest is Fred Claus, a ’seasonal’ comedy starring Vince Vaughan as Fred Claus the older brother of St Nick Claus aka Santa Claus. As comedies go this ones not to bad, and I must admt I actually enjoyed it.



Don‘t get me wrong this film has some flaws, namely the story is very predictable and I hate Rachel Weisz. I‘m sorry but I just do, she angers me especially in this one with her over inflated English accent, I know she is English but I swear she’s being more ‘English’ than an English person should be! Anyway back to basics…..the story here simply put is this. Fred Claus is the older brother of Nick Claus (Santa!) and is very jealous of him, Fred gives up on Christmas, gets in trouble, gets bailed out by Nick (Santa!) who lets him work at the toy factory where hilarity ensues (I use that term a little loosely, more on that later).



The film looks pretty from a cinematic perspective, The North Pole looks pretty and is shown off with some nice long camera pans over the bustling little town, the same applies with the ’workshop’. Okay so the reindeer flying is clearly CGI and there are a few other instances of similar problems but I don’t think it detracts from the films enjoyment to much. Where this film falls down is providing laughs when it should be, now there are quite a few funny bits (I laughed a lot when Vince Vaughan gets chased by thirty odd Santa’s, for example) but to often in the film the obvious setup for a joke is made but just fails to deliver. Its frustrating because with Vince Vaughan (some would say a staple in comedy movies), and Paul Giamatti (A brilliant actor and very funny when he gets the chance), in this picture you would expect there to be some brilliantly funny moments, but alas there are many moments when you’ll chuckle but very few where you’ll be laughing crazily.



Performances aren’t to bad in this film, Vince does his usual character, the overly talkative manipulative guy. Paul is good as Santa but does play him as a very sad and shy character (at least that’s the way I see it) and I was a tad disappointed with that aspect of the performance. Kevin Spacey is pretty damn cool as the ’bad’ guy in this piece but then I do love Kevin Spacey! Other than that there are some fun little cameos/smaller roles, Kathy Bates as Mother Claus, Trevor Peacock (Vicar of Dibley character ‘Jim’ fame) as Papa Claus and Elizabeth Banks as Charlene Santa’s Little Helper.



All in all I did find this film very good fun despite the odd flaw and although it will never be on a top ten list or win any awards its still a fun film to watch on a cold winter’s night with a bag of popcorn and a toasty fire, and that’s what a ’seasonal’ Christmas film should be all about. .