Four Christmases

            O come all ye faithful.  That certainly seems to be the attitude that studios have at the holidays, sputtering out yearly Christmas flicks and luring all the little ‘children’ to their theatres made of gingerbread…no matter how god-awful that movie may be.  Those thinking that Four Christmases must be four times the fun of a normal Christmas movie, are about to get a truckload of coal at their front door, because you’ll receive nothing but four times the pain, four times the tripe and four times the garbage.

          2008 marks the second year in a row a Vince Vaughn yuletide film has met the silver screen.  I will not claim to have seen Fred Claus but I can honestly not envision it being any worse, and if it is then all those involved must simply hate the holiday season.  Ironically it truly is the films gimmick that is its greatest determent.  Of course if the film had been remotely funny then this would have been an asset, but being forced slog through two hours of atrocious slapstick and mean-spirited comedy is not how I wish to spend my valuable vacation time.  With such talent involved, the absolute failure of Four Christmases is all the more lasting and if not for Vince Vaughn who gets the films only (and very, very few) laughs, the Grinch himself would have loved it.

          Following the only clever scene in the film in which Brad (Vince Vaughan) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) meet in a bar (although not to the end which you may expect) they plan their annual holiday trip down south for sun, relaxation and as an added bonus an ocean between them an their families.  But following heavy fog in their home city of San Francisco their flight is delayed, and thanks to a pesky reporter are featured on the news, which of course their families are watching.  Thus begins the hilarity, with the duo visiting each of their four divorced parents including Brad’s father (an awful Robert Duvall) his professional fighter brothers Denver (an awful John Favreau) and Dallas (Tim McGraw) and his mother (Sissy Spacek).  And on the other side, Kate’s mother (Mary Steenburgen) her baby loving sister Courtney (Kristin Chenoweth) and father (Jon Voight, who adds the only gravitas to the film).  As the couple hops from home to home their relationship is put to the test.  Will they learn the true meaning of family?

In its wholeness, Four Christmases is really a spiteful and mean-spirited film where all the characters do, is fight.  Kate and Brad fight, Kate and Brad fight with their families and their families fight amongst themselves, and I for one don’t want to be watching material like that around what is supposed to be a joyous time of year.  They openly avoid their families and their families really want nothing to do with them.  Not a single person in this film seems like a real person and never encounter problems or family quirks that might hit home (and really people, if it does, take your family to see a shrink) in addition to having no characters which are in any way likeable.  I mean this truthfully, after the first Christmas I was ready to leave, and the same slapstick surfaces again and again like the appetizer you accidentally dropped in the egg nog at an open house; Baby spittle scenes, UFC takedowns and crude sexist jokes seem to make up this films backbone.

A few times throughout Four Christmases the quip “You can’t spell families without lies” appears.  If this is what the Christmastime spirit is going to embody in the future of Hollywood, then you might as well just shove the ol’ tannenbaum in the trash right now, which coincidently, is exactly where this piece of dreck belongs as well.

© 2009 Simon Brookfield