Let me start off by saying that I could pretty much watch Vince Vaughn read a grocery list and get some chuckles out of it. Throw in Paul Giamatti and I will gladly give you my attention for two uninterrupted hours.

Fred Claus is the story of Santa’s bitter older brother. That is such a great and workable idea. I mean really. Gold. Throw in two actors I love, with direction from David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and what could go wrong? Plenty, I guess.

The prologue is long, slow and unfunny. I understand that it is somewhat necessary to the plot, but it’s a waste of screen time and loses the audience immediately. Couldn’t you have chopped it up and thrown it in later as short flashbacks? That would have helped a lot.

The director uses goofy sound effects during various points of the film. I don’t even know how to describe them using words, except to say they are like the goofy sound effects that are in Scooby Doo cartoons. The goofy running sound, the stupid falling down sound, and then for good measure some gratuitous and repeated fart sounds. The sad thing is that the scenes in which these are used often would have actually been funny if the sound effects hadn’t been pulling me out of the action to say “what the fuck?”

There are too many plot lines. Perhaps a better screenwriter could have blended them all together in a cohesive faction, but Dan Fogelman clearly isn’t up to the task. And he manages to waste some great actors in the process such as Rachel Weitz, Elizabeth Banks and Miranda Richardson.

But there are plenty of good things too. There are several wonderful relationships in this film, and in the rare moments when the actors aren’t so busy running around trying to get all the disparate plot points in, the characters really shine together. Giamatti and Vaughn have one or two great moments. Vaughn and lead elf Willie (John Michael Higgins) have some great moments as well. There are also two scenes that had me choked up to the point I almost cried. The first is a Giamatti scene with corporate villain Clyde Northcut (Kevin Spacey, I don’t care how many bad movies you do, I still love you). Spoiler Alert Giamatti realizes that he helped create Northcuts cold heart by judging him too quickly and placing him on the Naughty list back in ’68. He then seeks to make amends. The second is a Vaughn scene with a young orphan nicknamed Slam (Bobb’e J. Thompson, you show promise even if you do spell your name stupid.) Vaughn watches the kid get dragged off by C.P.S. and is powerless to stop the sometimes heartless workings of well meaning bureaucracy.

Another great thing about this movie is that it actually picks up steam as it goes. I’m used to being resigned to the fact that in service to “rising action” I’m generally going to dislike the last act of a film. Stuff needs to get done, plot points need to be resolved, and all the good stuff in a movie goes out the window. Not so with Fred Claus. I guess I either have to chock it up to Dobkins superior direction, or forgive Fogelman some of his other screenwriting transgressions.

Above all this film has the great concept that no kids are naughty. They are usually just kids who got a raw deal in life and develop bad attitudes. This is a powerful and much needed statement that in a better movie could have helped to redress our societies often black and white view of “good” and “bad” kids. Speaking as a former bad kid, this is a message I could have used hearing in between spankings from the nuns in grade school.

Sadly, all the good points in this movie are too little too late. While I’m sure this movie will still manage to have a healthy holiday shelf life, I sure wish I could see the movie this could have been, if the filmmakers had done a better job.

The extras are sparse. One commentary and a reel of deleted scenes that are only as good as the movie from which they were cut, which is to say, mostly dull with a few gems peeking out.

Overall Grade: C