Dec. 17, 2008

Reviewed by Richard Lee Zuras

Released Nov. 28

1 hr. 22 min.

Pg-13

Seth Gordon/New Line Cinema

Vince Vaughn

Reese Witherspoon

Robert DuVall

Sissy Spacek

Jon Voight

Jon Favreau

Mary Steenburgen

Dwight Yoakam

Kristin Chenowith

Where do I begin? Should I opine about the fact that a cast like this should be working on Oscar caliber movies and not “this year’s Christmas movie” that we will all see (even the head of Warner Brothers gave an exact quote that this is the only movie out there that deals with Christmas, ergo we will all see it) because, really, how many times can you watch A Christmas Story?  Should I rage at the fact that heavy marketing budgets almost always work–regardless of the quality of the film? (Queue the sheep!) Would it be fruitful to ask you to expect a greater movie from an 80 Million Dollar Budget!? Could I possibly convince you to admit that you laugh at a movie like this in great part because you showed up, $5 or $10 bill in hand, expecting to exercise those pesky yuletide stress demons?

Might I at least convince you that comedies, good comedies, take inventory of what they have and utilize said inventory for comic effect? Have you ever seen a comic not use his or her body for comic effect when the golden opportunity presents itself? Watch Chaplin, the Marx brothers. Hell, watch Sarah Silverman or Robin Williams or Roseanne or…you get the point. You use comedy where you find it. So…

Did anyone notice that Vince Vaughn is a wee bit taller than Reese Witherspoon? Even the poster had to recognize this. In interviews they both consistently spoke about it. This isn’t about short jokes, my friends. This isn’t about tall jokes either. This is about mining for comedy gold! How do you not take advantage of this sight gag in a film whose very premise is to expose childhood scars and differences among a couple? Now don’t even try to tell me that the film didn’t go there because it was obvious–most of these jokes were as obvious as Tennessee Williams screens in his original The Glass Menagerie concept. Do not try to tell me that the joke was so über-apparent that it was better left unsaid. Why? Because I counted the amount of times Reese stood on a box to hide their height difference. I also counted the times they forgot to put her on a box. I haven’t seen this sort of “height up and down” since Sly and Hulk Hogan squared off in Rocky 3!

Furthermore, can we stop handing over such big cast movies to guys who think Seinfeld is an old, old, show? Give me a guy who wasn’t raised on South Park and Axe cologne. I tire easily when I see projectile vomiting as the lead joke, the advertised joke, the repeated joke, the button joke. This film even ends with it. People, this is not a $268 SNL skit–this is cinema. If you are going to hire comedians then let them be comedians. Not everyone in the audience thinks it is the height of comedy to simply reference whatever is in vogue either. Nothing is staler than watching cage matches. Nothing is staler than the 30-something ticking clock. Nothing is staler than the concept that a movie need only to elicit four or five laughs. Four or five, obvious, forced, projectile, arrested development laughs at that. After all, South Park runs daily for free.

bottom line 2.5/5.0