Post by BIGFANBOY on Dec 3, 2008 2:02:04 GMT -5
FOUR CHRISTMASES
Review by Gary Dean Murray
The Christmas movie is a cash cow for actors. With residuals, the talent can be assured that a Yule flick will be played at least once a year for decades to come. Heck, even Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is still trotted on the TV screen each year. Last season, Vince Vaughn played Fred Claus, a little holiday flick about being the brother to the big guy. This year he stays closer to home but has to survive Four Christmases.
The story is as predictable as the title. Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Withersthingy) are two young and in love people who do not want to wreck their relationship by doing things like getting married or getting the folks involved in their lives. They are perfect in their egocentric match. It seems that each year, they lie to their respective torn apart families and spend the holidays in a more tropic zone. They don’t just tell little fibs to get away, they tell whoppers like they are going to a third world country to vaccinate orphans. Well, fate deals them some bad cards when the fog rolls in to their San Francisco airport on Christmas Eve. A TV crew is doing a report on how people are caught waiting and our two beloved heroes are seen by all of their respective families. Stuck in town, these two must go to each broken home to visit with the kin - aka doing four Christmases in on Day.
First off is his dad and the bulk of the comedy is generated here. Dad (Robert Duvall) is a hard-nosed roughneck with a bitter streak that his wife has left him. Kate also finds that Brad was actually born Orlando, showing how egocentric she is. Brad has two brothers who still haven’t grown out of their arrested development and rough housing is the norm in the family. By not knowing the rules for this year’s gift giving, Brad embarrasses his brothers. There is a car vignette, as the two lovebirds discuss how they don’t seem to know each other.
Then we go to house #2 and her mother. It is a gaggle of women in Kate’s family and all seem to have a libido in high gear. Brad discovers that Kate is afraid of bounce houses and that she went to ‘fat camp’. In a big and overdrawn scene, Brad and Kate have to play Mary and Joseph in the Nativity play. There is a car vignette, as the two lovebirds discuss how they don’t seem to know each other. Can you see where this pattern is headed?
This is exactly the film you expect it to be, no more -- no less. Director Seth Gordon finds some funny moments here and there but it drags along at a predictable pace. The families are more caricatures than fully thought out characters, with the brunt of cliches very much piled on at the first two houses. Two fighting brothers and a gaggle of horny older women are past being trite. I did like that idea that ‘you can’t spell families without lies’ but the entire film needed more fresh ideas.
But you have to love the cast. Even smaller roles are filled with such stellar cast members as Sissy Spacek and Jon Voight. Vince Vaughn has been de-fanged from his nasty days of Wedding Crashers but still has a pleasant manner with the camera. Reese Withersthingy is still winning the battle for ‘America’s Sweetheart’ and here she once again charms in every moment she graces the screen. And they both work well together, just in a script that needed more work from the quartet of writers that penned the final draft.
Four Christmases is not a bad film, it just isn’t a good one. Not anything you want to rush out and see but something that is more enjoyable than most Christmas faire.
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