Fred Claus is third Vince Vaughn movie I’ve reviewed for this website this year, and I must say it’s given me a new appreciation for how terrible his films are. Each of them rely on the fact that people love Vaughn and not much else. And despite having an impressive ensemble cast and a brilliant concept pushing the film, director David Dobkin does nothing interesting with it except let Vince Vaughn do his form of “comedy”.

Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) has spent his whole life living in the shadow of his brother Santa (Paul Giamatti). But when money troubles arise, he decides to work for his brother in order to get the dough he needs. But all the chaos Fred brings collides with an interesting visitor (Kevin Spacey as Clyde) to the North Pole, who intends to shut down the entire North Pole. Who can save Christmas??? You guessed it; the dude from The Break-Up!

Now, in all fairness, as I said above, this is a fairly intriguing premise for a film and one that could work, and at times it actually does. When it is actually firing on all cylinders, it’s moments that involve Giamatti’s impressive version of Santa or Spacey’s layered character. Still, the writing in the film is so weak that a pivotal emotional scene between the two characters is hilarious in all the wrong ways due to how poorly it’s played.

That’s something actually kind of fascinatingly wrong with this movie; it’s a drama that at times has laughs. But with the director of Wedding Crashers on your side and humorous starting concept for the movie, should it be? Why can’t it be a comedy with moments of poignancy, something that has worked numerous times in the past for other movies (for instance, the emotionally devastating Up is still funnier than most R-rated comedies). Instead, the movie almost drowns viewers in a sea of emotional garbage in the third act, which instead of inducing tears will make people wonder if the film’s dysfunctional tone is down to the filmmakers having some kind of bipolar disorder. Add in another unfunny Vince Vaughn performance to all these flaws and it’s no wonder Fred Claus is a major failure in the world of Christmas films.