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MOVIE INFO

Director:
Seth Gordon
Cast:
Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, Tim McGraw
Writing Credits:
Matt Allen (and story), Caleb Wilson (and story), Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Tagline:
His father, her mother, his mother and her father all in one day.

Synopsis:
Every Christmas happily unmarried Brad and Kate escape divorced parents and exasperating relatives by getting on a plane. This year a fog rolls in, the airport shuts down and the couple is forced to celebrate four family Christmases in one hectic, hilarious day. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon lead an all-star cast in a comedy brimming with good cheer and great laughs - as well as the answer to the question: Can Brad and Kate's relationship survive Four Christmases?

Box Office:
Budget
$80 million.
Opening Weekend
$31.069 million on 3310 screens.
Domestic Gross
$120.146 million.

MPAA:
Rated PG-13

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Widescreen 1.85:1/16X9
Fullscreen 1.33:1
Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English
Spanish
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 88 min.
Price: $28.98
Release Date: 11/24/2009

Bonus:
• Previews


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EQUIPMENT
Panasonic 50" TH-50PZ77U 1080p Plasma Monitor; Sony STR-DG1200 7.1 Channel Receiver; Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-Ray Player using HDMI outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Kenwood 1050SW 150-watt Subwoofer.

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Four Christmases (2008)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 20, 2009)

Sometimes I think that any movie with a family-oriented Christmas theme and a decent star in it will make big bucks. Sure, there are exceptions to this rule; for instance, Ben Affleck’s Surviving Christmas was a dismal flop.

However, the rule proves correct more often than not, and plenty of movies that critics savaged still made money. Once the calendar hits November, people just flock to Christmas flicks, even if they’re bad. How else can one explain the $73 million gross of the 2004 atrocity Christmas with the Kranks.

Or the $120 million made by 2008’s Four Christmases. Like Surviving and Kranks, Four belongs to that genre of holiday film that views Christmas as an ordeal, not as a time of joy and celebration. When the holidays roll around, Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) have a problem. They normally manage to avoid Christmas with their relatives, as they always come up with some excuse to be alone.

This year, however, a complication alters that plan. Instead, they need to visit relatives, but both sets of parents are divorced. This means that they have to make four independent visits – and essentially celebrate four Christmases, whether they like it or not.

Is that set-up a recipe for good comedy? Sure, maybe, I suppose. The idea of the holidays as a stressful time isn’t exactly new – hey, old George Bailey got so worked up he wanted to kill himself! – and most of us can relate to the notion that the various family dynamics can create ill-will. With its speed-dating approach to Christmas, Four has a reasonably clever notion at its heart.

So as a concept, Four has something going for it. As a film, however, it goes nowhere. Essentially episodic in nature, it attempts to provide a general plot when Kate starts to feel differently about her relationship with Brad. They’ve always been hedonistic types who agreed they didn’t want marriage or kids, but Kate’s viewpoint changes as the film progresses.

Why does this happen? Because Four wants to have its drama with its comedy. The first half of the movie revolves around little more than slapstick shenanigans. The first two Christmases depict violent encounters played for laughs, but the third one more fully embraces the relationship side of things. Oh, the earlier scenes hint at this theme as well – primarily when Kate and Brad learn things they never knew about each other – but the third Christmas launches the dramatic side, and the fourth revolves entirely around serious topics.

A better movie would handle the transition well, but Four isn’t that flick. Everything about the film feels contrived, and that becomes especially obvious when it conspires to drive a wedge between Brad and Kate. At no point does the shift make much sense. After three years of apparent blissful happiness, Kate all of a sudden decides she’s not satisfied? Sure, people change their minds about what makes them happy, but the rapidity with which Kate does her 180 seems illogical at best.

This factor ensures that the film’s second half will be mopey and tedious, as the Serious Relationship material just doesn’t work. That’s largely because we don’t much care about Kate and Brad as people or as a couple. They’re little more than comedic props during the movie’s first half, so when Four tries to develop them as real folks, it’s too late. We’ve not gotten invested in them over the first 45 minutes, and nothing in the second half changes that. Because of this, Four is a schizophrenic and unsatisfying effort.

That said, I can’t claim it would fare better if it continued to shoot for laughs throughout all 88 of its minutes. Apparently “family comedy” means lots of slapstick gags. For the most part, these revolve around violence and bodily fluids. Within the first half of the flick, we get not one but two sequences in which kids assault adults. Boy, if that’s not creative bankruptcy, I don’t know what is – the movie is so unimaginative that it goes to the same well twice in rapid succession!

Despite a radically overqualified cast, nary a titter or smirk results from the comedy. Slack-jawed disbelief seems more likely, as the gags are consistently crass, stupid and devoid of entertainment value. We can see most of them from a mile away, and they lack any cleverness – unless you love horny grandma jokes and vomit.

I remain stunned at the level of talent attracted to this project. Actual Oscar-winners play each of the four parents, and you’ll also find plenty of recognizable names/faces in the other roles. Of course, Witherspoon won her own Oscar, and Vaughn is a genuine movie star himself.

With all that talent – and the director of the delightful King of Kong at the helm – how did Four Christmases go so wrong? I don’t know, but it offers a genuinely wretched piece of work nonetheless.

Curious footnote: is it a coincidence that Four Christmases features both Robert Duvall and Dwight Yoakum, or was someone involved a big Sling Blade fan?


The DVD Grades: Picture C/ Audio C/ Bonus D-

Four Christmases appears in both an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 and in a fullscreen version on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the widescreen image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Only the letterboxed picture was reviewed for this article. The transfer looked decent but unexceptional.

Sharpness usually seemed adequate. Wider shots were a bit soft, and some mild edge haloes contributed to that. However, definition usually was decent, though a fair amount of pixelization and blockiness occurred. In particular, Witherspoon’s hair tended to look rougher than it should. Mild instances of shimmering and jagged edges appeared, and artifacts could give the movie a grainy look. Other signs of source flaws failed to occur.

Colors were a relative highlight of the transfer. With the usual array of Christmas hues, the tones generally appeared clear and vivid. They didn’t quite dazzle, but they seemed fine. Blacks were reasonably dense, while shadows showed acceptable delineation. Nothing here excelled, however, and the image seemed average.

Similar thoughts greeted the decidedly lackluster Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of Christmases. Even with a handful of comedy set pieces, the soundfield remained quite subdued. Occasional effects elements cropped up from the sides, and a few pieces moved from one spot to another, but this was usually a very laid-back soundscape that offered little in the way of auditory impact.

That meant virtually nothing from the surrounds. The forward speakers had little to do, so one couldn’t expect the back channels to provide much life. The scene in the Jump Jump has a little pizzazz, but otherwise this was a decidedly uninvolving track.

At least audio quality was good. Speech sounded consistently natural and concise, without edginess or other issues. Music appeared full and clear, and effects provided good accuracy. Nothing challenged my system, but the material sounded fine. The decidedly low-key nature of the soundfield left this as a “C”, though.

A few ads open the DVD. We get clips for Blu-ray Disc, Sherlock Holmes, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and the Mini Ninjas video game. And that’s it – no other extras appear here.

If anyone could tell me how a film that features Vince Vaughn and five – that’s right, five - Oscar-winning actors could be as awful as Four Christmases, I’d love to hear the explanation. Despite an interesting concept and all that talent, the movie adds up to little more than a collection of violent/gross gags with some phony relationship drama tacked on to make it more “meaningful”. The DVD provides consistently average picture and audio but lacks any extras. There are far too many good Christmas movies for me to recommend this insulting nonsense.

Viewer Film Ratings: 1.625 Stars Number of Votes: 8
05:
14:
0 3:
22:
51:
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