KILLING AND CHRISTMAS

Fred Claus/Divorce, Italian Style

There’s no question that Fred Claus, an insipid comedy from Warner Bros. about Santa’s wayward sibling, has all the ingredients of a bad movie, but the flaws are revealing of a larger problem. Unable to sustain its one-note premise, the story foolishly revels in the mythology of Christmas to mask comedic vapidity. The trick doesn’t work. With Vince Vaughn in autopilot as foul-mouthed clod Fred, the movie carries the illusion of subversive storytelling, but it really plays nice.

Read the rest of the review in the New York Press...