Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are a successful couple, both in terms of their careers and their shared perspectives on the life they have together. Both are from divorced families and, as such, neither sees the value in marriage or family. They enjoy their lives together minus those pressures. When holiday time comes around each year, they cook up a string of far-fetched lies so as not to disappoint their families while they head off to an exotic locale for a little R & R. But when a nosey TV news reporter catches the couple decked out in beach wear at the airport, they are caught red-handed. Their vacation is cancelled and instead of tanning on the beach, they'll be subjecting their relationship to the biggest test yet: surviving an entire day with their four nightmare families.
Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon may not be the first two you'd put together in a game of Hollywood matchmaker, but they are cute together. Vaughn does his standard fast-talking funnyman schtick and Reese is a slightly harder version of the girl-next-door America fell in love with. She sets Vince up for the home run and even throws in a few funny moments herself, such as a brutal battle royale with her niece and fellow kiddies inside a blow-up jump pit. Vaughn and Witherspoon don't exactly have steamy romantic chemistry, but comically, they are perfectly suited to one another.
Four Christmases has a massive supporting cast with some clever cameos that yield some of the movie's biggest laughs: Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw as Brad's UFC-trained boneheaded brothers, Robert Duvall as Brad's grizzled father, Kristen Chenoweth as Kate's buxom and fertile sister, and Mary Steenburgen as Kate's cougar mom.
Four Christmases is directed by Seth Gordon, whose prior effort was the very different The King of Kong, about a man who sets out to break the all-time record score on Donkey Kong. Here Gordon demonstrates strength for narrative filmmaking and comic timing. Sadly, Four Christmases finds the director saddled with an uneven script full of holes and overblown dramatic tension. Four writers are credited on the screenplay, which is generally a sure sign of story issues from the get-go. This is most evident when the generally breezy comedy of familial dysfunction tries to eek out a deeper message of the importance of family and the dangers of surface values. It falls flat and leaves a bit of a sour taste by end credits.
All in all, Four Christmases is the kind of Christmas flick America responds to year after year. It's certainly better than Vaughn's stinker of last holiday season, Fred Claus, but still falls well short of the top tier of dysfunctional holiday movie classics like A Christmas Story and Bad Santa.
ReelzChannel Rating: 