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Vince Vaughn and the Christmas comedy genre don't appear to be a winning pair-up. Only one year after 2007's Fred Claus, Vaughn has decided to take a second swipe at the festive season, resulting in the mirthless, utterly joyless Four Christmases. It's by-the-numbers, instantly forgettable, mysteriously star-ridden and it contains no laughs. Not one. Zilch. Zero.
Like all recent studio-produced Christmas comedies, the premise behind Four Christmases is rather promising. The protagonists - Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) - have been a couple for three years and are adamantly against marriage. Every year as Christmas approaches, the couple feed their two sets of divorced parents a fabricated story about travelling to a third-world country to do charity work, whilst in reality they jet off to a tropical paradise to celebrate the season in sunnier settings. However, this year a fog rolls in and flights are cancelled, so Brad and Kate have no choice but to spend the day visiting their estranged families.
One would assume that a couple being forced to visit their crazy relatives would result in amusing situations, but the comic interludes here are sitcom level at best. With each subsequent visit, Four Christmases progressively grows less amusing and more tedious. Each home presents its own set of obstacles, most of which are unbelievably predictable. For instance Brad's brothers are cage-fighters who beat the shit out of him, and his father is a cranky old coot. Kate's female relatives are sex-crazed, especially the elderly ones...because there's nothing funnier than a horny grandma, of course. And there's a baby that must inevitably throw up on someone. These unfunny situations are loaded with obnoxiously unfunny jokes, and eventually fizzle into climax-free nothingness. The biggest drawback of Four Christmases is the inconsistent tone. The film is mean-spirited, uncomfortable slapstick comedy for the first three-quarters before dissolving into unearned mush and sentiment for the final quarter. The tonal shift fails because the characters are underdeveloped. Brad & Kate are comedic caricatures, and trying to make an audience care about their circumstances during the final act simply doesn't work due to lack of depth.
Things aren't aided by the fact the protagonists are written as bratty assholes - their cover story of charity work in third-world countries is terrible, and throughout the movie the couple come off as snarky and bitter. Even more insulting is that the characters make hardly any sense. After three years of living together, they haven't once spoken about having children or getting married? Brad hasn't told Kate his real name? Kate never showed Brad photos from her childhood, or revealed any of her big secrets? At no point did either of them mention the nature of their families?
There is one inspired element of Four Christmases: the hiring of director Seth Gordon, who deftly constructed the video game documentary The King of Kong. It's not that Gordon is outgunned here, but there's a distinct lack of authority permeating the mood of the film. It'd be tough to blame the director for the ultimate failure of the picture, since it was doomed from the very outset, but Gordon nevertheless directs Four Christmases as if it were a television movie. Mercifully, the film is quite brief at about 88 minutes, so at least this mean-spirited affair doesn't have too much time to get under your skin.
The level of ineptness also extends to Witherspoon and Vaughn. One would assume the two would be able to carry any screenplay, but the material is so incredibly thin that not even Al Pacino and Meryl Streep could've made it work. Vaughn is usually left to carry the load, which he does by essentially playing the same character he always plays: the slick, cool, fast-talking, know-it-all dude. But it ain't enough. It doesn't work. Neither Vaughn nor Witherspoon exudes much in the way of energy. It's baffling that this pile of crap was sold to these actors. They are both credited as producers too, which raises the bafflement level even further.
The supporting cast is equally hopeless. Jon Favreau is wasted on a throwaway role with very few lines and no opportunity to exploit the well-practised chemistry he shares with Vince Vaughn. Next up, there's the usually brilliant Robert Duvall. His character is even more flavourless than Favreau's role, and it's sickening to witness Duvall being backed into "comical" screaming and yelling. There are also roles assigned to Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight, Tim McGraw and Kristen Chenoweth. That's a total of five Academy Award-winners in this cast. What on Earth is going on here?
The question that must be asked about Four Christmases is...why?! Why did so many top-notch actors choose to be in it? Did they need to boost their box office cache? Did their agents talk them into it? Did they not read the script? One must also wonder why this film was ever green-lit in the first place, and why it wasn't shut down when the completely humourless dailies started rolling in (especially considering the film's elephantine $80 million budget). If Vince Vaughn wants to ruin Christmas, he's on the right track with Fred Claus and Four Christmases. Another cinematic coal lump could permanently beat the Christmas spirit out of this reviewer. Families - or anyone - seeking holiday fun will not find it in Four Christmases, so look elsewhere (like the liquor cabinet).
2.5/10
