Overall 1/5
Director: Seth Gordon
Genre: comedy
Running time: 82'

If everything else fails, there is one sure way to find out that the holidays season is getting closer: come Christmas time, studios are churning out their thematic ballast like clockwork. Quality is never a part of the production equation - the movie can be as bad as hell as long as it fixes issues in a dysfunctional family, is nominally a comedy, has the words "Christmas", "Santa" or "Claus" in its title and, well, is simply there on the screen. Four Christmases is the ultimate case in point. With Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as the happily unmarried couple at its centre, the film is loudly and manically unfunny, with attempts at screwball falling flat on their faces and a late dramatic turnaround that fares even worse. Surely one can do better than to fill one's festive film diet with Christmas-themed titles. If little else, Four Christmases can at least convince the doubters that watching jingle-bells movies is a bad idea.

Vaughn is Brad, Witherspoon is Kate; they are a happy couple, they don't believe in marriage or in getting together for the holidays. Both are products of divorced families and Christmas is a source of painful memories rather than joyous ones. Their festive strategy is an annual trip to Fiji, while telling their four now-remarried parents that they are doing some noble charity work, let's say, feeding orphans in Guatemala. They are again on their way to Fiji's postcard paradise, but their plane is delayed by nasty weather and, to their horror, they get interviewed for TV and everybody who knows them learns that they are still around.

The couple decides to pay their family dues by visiting all four of their parents' households. First up is a visit to Brad's surly father (Robert Duvall) and Brad's two amateur cage-fighting room-temperature-IQ brothers Dallas and Denver (Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw), where the proceedings are garnered with horridly unfunny brother wrestling. The second visit is to Kate's horny mother and sister (Mary Steenburgen and Kristin Chenoweth), who quickly cast their nets on Brad. Next up is Brad's even hornier mother (Sissy Spacek), who is in love with Brad's best friend. Last in line is the meeting with Kate's dad (Jon Voight), which is supposed to be sombre and evocative, but comes about as anything but.

Arguably, the most intriguing thing about Four Christmases is its star-heavy cast, and it is equally intriguing to note that the five Oscar-winning actors on display are not asked to do anything meaningful. The proceedings are dominated by Vaughn at his loud, manic unfunny worst; director Seth Gordon has either forgotten or hasn't summoned the courage to tell Vaughn that he is funnier when his energy dial is not up to 11. Next to him, Witherspoon is a disinterested sidekick who is simply there. She does not contribute much to the movie apart from her name and her presence in most scenes, which is disappointing because she can be the essence of endearing and funny. It is quite possible that some of the better or braver scenes that had been shot have ended up on the cutting room floor, with the film clocking up at a meagre 82 minutes, and this could explain its hacked and confused feel, but not justify it. You are better off peeling potatoes for the Christmas dinner than watching this; you can try and prove me wrong at your peril.