It's not easy to have a saint for a brother

But in the new holiday film Fred Claus, it creates plenty of funny sibling rivalry.

By Chase Shiflet, Times correspondent
Published November 8, 2007

Review

Fred Claus

Grade: B

Director: David Dobkin

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Miranda Richardson, Kathy Bates, Kevin Spacey

Screenplay: Dan Fogelman

Rating: PG; mild language and some rude humor

Running time: 116 min.

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I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical as I was going in to see Fred Claus. Some recent Christmas movies, except for Elf, haven't been spectacular. And commercials for Fred Claus didn't appeal to me.

Imagine my surprise when I actually found myself laughing at the sight gags and jokes. While the movie was by no means stupendous, it certainly exceeded all of my admittedly low expectations.

This movie is not about Nicholas "Santa" Claus (Paul Giamatti), but about his older brother Fred (Vince Vaughn, playing another lovable slacker). As kids, Fred always lived in Nicholas' shadow. Fred was always generous and fairly nice to Nicholas, and Nicholas forwarded that kindness tenfold to everyone else.

As they grew older, Fred began to resent Nicholas for all the attention he received from their mother (Kathy Bates) and their friends, but Nicholas only grew nicer and more generous. Eventually, he became a saint.

Cut to present-day Chicago, where Fred winds up in jail after a mishap with several Salvation Army Santa Claus impersonators in a toy store and needs Nicholas to bail him out. Nicholas will post bail on one condition: Fred has to come to the North Pole and help out Nicholas and his elves. Reluctantly, Fred agrees to make the trip with the aid of Santa's sleigh and Willie the Elf (John Michael Higgins).

Unknown to everyone else in the North Pole except Santa and his wife, Annette (Miranda Richardson), an efficiency expert named Clyde (Kevin Spacey) is intent on shutting the entire operation down. If there are three mishaps that set back the production of toys, no more North Pole.

The premise of this movie is fairly original, and most of the acting is quite good, especially that of Giamatti and Spacey. Vaughn does what he does well - fast-talking con artist dialogue. In fact, the dialogue sounds as if it was written with him specifically in mind, so well does it suit him.

A few things could have been improved. An unnecessary subplot between Willie and his crush on Santa's Little Helper (Elizabeth Banks) could be deleted. Some of the special effects seem a little cheap: Ludacris' face is affixed to a little person's body, but sometimes his face never catches up with the body. And there are a few mommy-son issues that aren't resolved.

Although Fred Claus can get a little too sentimental and some parts seem unnecessary, the movie did make me laugh. And I couldn't ask much more than that.

Chase Shiflet, 14, is in ninth grade at Blake High School in Tampa and was a member of the X-Team of student writers for the Times.

[Last modified November 6, 2007, 16:43:15]