A few funny sequences, a shelf’s worth of Oscars and the glorious improvising of Vince Vaughn are not enough to save “Four Christmases,” a fatally labored comedy on the holidays.
Even the clock doesn’t seem right in this one. Young unmarried couple Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) hit four different holiday parties in the course of one epic Christmas day … which seems to last about 36 hours.
Brad and Kate mean to fly off to Fiji that morning, specifically to avoid visiting the homes of their four sets of divorced parents. But fog has socked in the San Francisco airport, and they’re stuck.
Among the many improbable elements of the script is the fact that even though all the homes are within easy driving distance of each other and Brad and Kate have been involved for four years, neither has ever met the other’s families. Doesn’t sound quite right.
Each of the parents is played by an Oscar-winning actor, which must be some kind of new standard in overqualified Hollywood employment. Robert Duvall, a great actor who regularly takes dumb paychecks, is Brad’s father; his other sons are brutes (including Vaughn’s regular sparring partner, Jon Favreau).
Brad’s mom is played by Sissy Spacek. The amusing twist there is that she’s now dating a much-younger childhood friend of her son’s, a joke that was fairly funny the first dozen times I saw the trailer, but had lost some of its luster by the time I actually watched the movie.
The longest bit comes at the home of Kate’s mother (Mary Steenburgen), which veers off into a visit to a “megachurch” where her new beau (Dwight Yoakum) is pastor. Vaughn creates some fine moments when pressed into service as a Nativity pageant performer.
And the row of Academy Award winners is filled out by Jon Voight, in his customary weepy mode as Kate’s father. By the time we get to his place, the movie has come to some extremely predictable conclusions about Brad and Kate’s future.
Director Seth Gordon did the wonderful documentary “The King of Kong,” so maybe he got the decent jokes in, although much of the comic energy comes from Vince Vaughn’s energetic riffing. Alas, Reese Witherspoon spins her wheels.
After “Fred Claus,” this might be a good time for Vaughn to retire from the mantle of Hollywood’s Santa. You don’t want him to ever get too respectable, and these movies are far too square for his rounded talents.
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