Fred Claus

Vince Vaughn delves into the pre-teen demo, hoping that parents will enjoy the added value of seeing their favorite wise-ass wreaking havoc in Toyland. Vaughn plays Santa's no-good older brother Fred, who works as a repo man in Chicago and, in scheming to raise enough money to buy a restaurant, bilks some Salvation Army Santas and winds up in the slammer. Meanwhile, Santa's workshop is having a hard time keeping up with the increased demand of today's greedy kids, so Santa (Paul Giamatti) offers to give Fred seed money if he'll just come up to the North Pole and help out with the Christmas rush. The exceptional cast—Vaughn, Giamatti, Kathy Bates, Kevin Spacey, Rachel Weisz—is an embarrassment of riches for a script this thin and this beholden to family-fare protocol, with its mushy-minded moral and slick sentimentality. Lacking the absurdist je ne say what of fellow crank Bill Murray (who tried his hand at Christmas fare with Scrooged), the demonic physical comedy of Ben Stiller (amassing kid cred with Night at the Museum), or the freestyling innocence of Will Ferrell (Elf), Vaughn brings to the kiddie party the same thing he brings to the adult party: a six-foot-five attitude problem. Whether a giant man with an extensive flannel collection and a big mouth will have crossover (or -under) appeal is anyone's guess.