Fred Clause
November 15th, 2007, 7:07 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Charlton Wiggins
Some of the pre-release reviews about Fred Claus really did a dis-service by trying to compare it to everything from Miracle on 34th Street to A Christmas Story. Each of those films are classics in their own right and setting up Fred Claus in comparison is not fair to the new release. That isn’t to say though that Fred Claus is not a good film, quite the contrary - it is a fun-filled twist on the centuries old tale of Saint Nick.
Vince Vaughn (The Wedding Crashers, The Breakup) is Fred Claus, Santa’s good-hearted but n’er-do-well older brother. Driven apart in their youth by sibling rivalry and jealousy Fred is forced to pay off a debt to Santa (played wonderfully by Paul Giamatti -Sideways, Cinderella Man) by spending the days leading up to Christmas with his brother and Mrs. Claus at the North Pole.
Enter the villainous Clyde Northcutt (played by Kevin Spacey) a pencil-pushing quality control dweeb from the nefarious “company” that evidently controls all holidays. Clyde is bent on closing down Santa’s workshop and thus Christmas also. After Fred and Santa engage in a knock-down, drag-out snowball fight and brotherly fisticuffs Santa’s back goes out and it looks like Clyde will have his way unless Fred can pull off Santa’s nocturnal duties in time.
Fred Claus is enjoyable if for nothing more than seeing the pandemonium Fred causes in the workshop with the elves. Fred Claus will never attain the same degree of popularity that the afore-mentioned films enjoy, but it will become a staple of the discount mega-store Christmas display in years to come.
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