No Ho-Ho-Ho Here
- Title: Fred Claus
- IMDb: link
Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) is an immortal schmuck. The older brother of Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti) has spent his life in the shadow of his famous sibling. He’s a con artist, a thief, a liar, and an all around unlikable guy. Needing money for his latest scheme he takes a temporary job in the North Pole working for his brother.
There’s more to the film including a reunion with Fred’s parents (Kathy Bates, Trevor Peacock), an evil efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) trying to put Santa out of business, an elf (John Michael Higgins) with a crush on Santa’s little helper (Elizabeth Banks), a troubled orphan named Slam (Bobb’e J. Thompson), and Fred consistently screwing up his relationship with a woman who is too good for him (Rachel Weisz).
Would you believe, with all these stories, not a single one is interesting? Yeah, Giamatti is not too bad in the role of Santa (and Miranda Richardson does a tolerable job as his wife), but other than look like Santa there’s nothing for him to do in the film except play the straight man to Vaughn’s antics.
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