It’s cute, sweet and hilarious. What more can you expect when you mix Paul Giamatti and Vince Vaughn together.
One’s so fat and round you just want to hug him forever, the other has a humour as sharp as a stake knife and a motormouth set to go on till infinity — you just want to slap him till he comes to his senses. Even if you’re high on eggnog, Fred Claus won’t disappoint you, thanks to these two.
The duo play brothers, as the film’s title suggests. Fred (Vaughn) is the elder Claus boy, his younger, insanely-famous sibling being Santa or Nicholas (Giamatti). Soured with all the attention Nick gets and his ‘goody-two-shoes’ attitude, Fred decides to boycott Santa and Christmas.
His negative ‘poison-spitting’ attitude soon lands him in a load of trouble financially and romantically. With no other choice, Fred calls on his younger brother, who agrees to help him in exchange for some manual labour up at his North Pole workshop. Considering Fred’s ‘devil-may-care’ streak, things get very messy and it’s up to Fred to save Christmas.
Vaughn, as Fred, does more than just that.
In fact, the movie should have been called How Fred Saved Christmas or How Vince Kept Fred Claus Afloat. If you’re a fan of Vaughn, he lives up to the ideal.
You won’t go home with a frown. Giamatti, sadly, has little scope to show his true comic talents. The maximum he can do is look chubby, cuddly, kind and oh-so-Santa. Kevin Costner is a bad guy turned good, but he’s better before the transformation.
Miranda Richardson and Rachel Weisz have small roles to play as the brothers’ spouses and they do a fair job, given the length of their roles. Director Dobkin could have demanded a stronger script, as the dialogues written by Dan Fogelman seem too fragile to last throughout a 2 hour movie.
It does give out at many places, but the veteran actors manage to keep the film standing. Visual effects by the team of MPC, Rainmaker UK, Cinesite and Nvizage seems scratchy in many places. But if you can ignore that, then you’re set to enjoy the rest.
A must-watch, especially if you like plum cakes, stockings, fir trees and all things Christmas.
