A Film on the Naughty List

Honestly, all you need to know about Fred Claus is that Ludacris plays an elf. Actually, that's not true. Ludacris plays an elf's head. An actual little person plays the body.

Weird rapper casting aside, the film is just bad. It's badly conceived, badly written, badly acted. The premise of the film is that Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) is Nick Claus's (Paul Giamatti) older and less successful brother. Fresh out of jail, Fred returns to the North Pole and agrees to work a stint in his brother's toy workshop to earn money to make a fresh start. Unfortunately, Fred isn't what you'd call a model employee and his tenure in his brother's shop coincides with a visit from a vindictive efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) hell-bent on shutting Christmas down. And mayhem ensues.

A film like Fred Claus makes me seriously question how the film industry works. Think about this. Someone (Dan Fogleman) wrote this script and though, "Dang, this is good. I can sell this!" And then a studio executive read it and thought, "Dang, this is good. People will pay to see this." (I, for the record, watched it on HBO; no money left my pocket with the intention of viewing this atrocity.) And producers put up money to get the film made. And actors thought it would be good for their careers to be in the film (um, did Elizabeth Banks turn down any roles in the last two years? I don't know if she's meant to be a giant elf or randomly the only average-sized person not related to the Claus family living at the north pole). It is difficult for me to imagine there are that many people out there with such poor judgement.

The film, on top of just being a trainwreck from start to finish, also has a heavy-handed "moral" message about forgiving the overbearing scene-stealing sibling in whose shadow you've lived your whole life (thanks to some cameos from Roger Clinton, Frank Stallone and Stephen Baldwin) and shining in your own spotlight. And about pulling together as a family when times get tough and a bad man tries to shut down Christmas because one year he was naughty and didn't get the Superman cape he asked for.

There's also a weird message about tolerance relating to an angry orphan (Bobb'e J. Thompson) whose been so trod upon by the world as a child that he lashes out and ends up on the naughty list. But, as it turns out, there really are no naughty kids, just kids who need a little extra love and understanding. And puppies.

Watch this film at your own risk. It'll make you feel badly enough about yourself for the simple act of having watched it that you should lock up all sharp objects and avoid operating heavy machinery for at least 3 hours afterwards.