Four Christmases

It’s a rough week to be Vince Vaughn. His holiday stinker from 2007, Fred Claus, debuts on DVD this week like a Ghost of Christmas Past coming back to haunt him worse than a one night stand who ends up coming to the office holiday party with your co-worker. Now, he has the worst movie of the Thanksgiving season. Yes, Four Christmases is the Thanksgiving Turkey of 2008.

Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star as Brad and Kate – a young couple that refuses to embrace societal norms. They are happy living together without any plans to get married. They have no desire to have kids even though everyone around them continues to pop out the rug rats. Most of all, Brad and Kate cannot and will not under any circumstances spend one minute of the holidays with their parents and families. They want to go on a fun vacation instead.

Of course, that is the set up for a movie (not necessarily a good one, but one nonetheless). When all flights out of San Francisco are grounded on Christmas Day, ruining their plans to fly away to Fiji, Brad and Kate are seen on television by their families, who thought the couple was heading off to a more meaningful and charitable holiday excursion. Now, the Scrooges are forced to spend Christmas day with each of their four parents.

Can they make it from house to house without being driven crazy?

Will they learn more about each other than they ever really wanted to know?

I am starting to think Vince Vaughn either hates Christmas and will not stop making bad Christmas movies until he has ruined the holiday for everyone on the planet, or he has a shrewd strategy to make Christmas movies that will always play on TV during the season, therefore, setting him up for royalties and residuals for the rest of his life.

Four Christmases is an uncomfortable comedy with no rhythm, no direction and no chemistry between the two stars. Director Seth Gordon and the four person writing team attempt to make Four Christmases into some sort of yuletide Bataan Death March, but miss the point.

Early on, Four Christmases is a crazy, over-the-top comedy. It might not be a great one, but it has some laughs due to the outrageousness of the action and story. However, as the movie progresses, Gordon and the team strip Four Christmases of its uniqueness.

Instead of getting crazier and crazier, Gordon and the team start to twist the story into a predictable yawner where Brad and Kate learn some lessons and warm up to a traditional lifestyle. They were more interesting when they reveled in the lies and embraced an emotional coldness that separated the characters from every other Christmas movie you have seen. Sadly, Vaughn and Witherspoon don’t do anything else to make the movie original or memorable.

Vaughn does his typical hyper, fast talking guy thing, which makes Four Christmases funny at moments when it shouldn’t be, but he and Witherspoon appear to be making separate movies all together. The two share no chemistry, never make you believe the couple might be in love and appear to want to hurt each other more than kiss and make up.

Yet, my biggest problem with the movie is Tim McGraw. Don’t get me wrong. He’s funny and has gotten to the point where he is an actor, instead of being a country music star who acts on the side. However, as one of Brad’s ultimate fighter brothers, and the husband of Faith Hill, he should not be so pudgy! He owes that angelic goddess of a woman six pack abs, not a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts abs! If she’s going to be married to a fat guy, it might as well be me.

Four Christmases might make you want to skip ahead to July 4th.

Four Christmases is rated PG-13 for some sexual humor and language.