Four Christmases

Director: Seth Gordon
Screenwriters: Matt Allen, Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Favreau, Mary Steenburgen
Running Time: 88 mins
Certificate: 12A

As odd as it sounds, more fun could be had from spending an hour and a half ploughing through rammed shopping centres on December 24 than sitting through the entirety of Four Christmases. This festive comedy drifts past in a haze of broad slapstick, childish jokes and projectile vomiting - leaving no lasting impression and vacating your head the moment it fades to black.

Every Christmas well-to-do couple Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) leave the country to escape spending time with their divorced parents and dysfunctional families. When dense fog grounds every flight out of San Francisco and the pair are caught on camera at the airport, they face the prospect of having to visit each of their parents before they can catch a flight out of the country.

Structured as five stories - the four family visits and a tedious Brad/Kate personal growth plot - the movie misfires at just about every turn. The cast, an impressive collection of Academy Award winners and nominees, seem present only for the pay cheque and the height-mismatched pairing of Vaughn and Witherspoon is a black hole in terms of chemistry. Vaughn delivers the same over-caffeinated motormouth riff he's been doing since Old School and Witherspoon appears frosty, disinterested and completely unwilling to throw herself into the part. There is no law that can retroactively void an Oscar win, but if there were, Witherspoon's Walk The Line statuette should be instantly reclaimed.

Four Christmases first two ports of calls, to Brad's father (Robert Duvall) and Kate's mother (Steenburgen), are a painful indication of the type of trite, unsophisticated comedy that riddles this film. Duvall and family are no more than tobacco-swilling, dim-witted redneck stereotypes and Steenburgen's tight-knit group of cougars take pleasure in revealing to Vaughn embarrassments from Kate's obese younger years. The only character not completely repellent in this whole affair is Sissy Spacek's hippy earth mother Paula.

This rom-com only registers anything approaching comedy on three occasions: Brad's remark to Kate upon discovering she had a lesbian best friend at school: "You're a better kisser for it"; the irony of pumping out Gary Glitter's 'Rock And Roll Part 2' to the arrival of creepy Pastor Phil (Dwight Yoakam) lost on a fanatical church congregation; and a game of Taboo which reveals Brad's sister-in-law's bizarre lust for John Grisham.

Four Christmases has no edge, no bite and, unlike Bad Santa, makes no attempt to puncture the clichés apparent in this admittedly narrow genre. After 70 minutes of lowest common denominator humour, an abrupt introduction of Jon Voight injects cringey sentimentality and reaches in vain for substance and credibility. The finale reprises the phoning parents gag that sets the whole movie in motion - and suggests that there could be a sequel (Meet The Moronic Grandparents?) to look forward to.

The real tragedy about this dire festive turkey is that it's directed by Seth Gordon, whose first film was the brilliant video game documentary The King Of Kong. The man who made the greatest underdog movie since Rocky has somehow found himself responsible for the worst slice of Christmas cinema since Jingle All The Way. It's more than a sophomore slump for Gordon, it's a swan-dive off of the Hollywood sign and bone-shattering tumble down the famous Los Angeles hillside.


> What do you think of Four Christmases? Share your views