Friday 2 December 2016

Four Christmases Review

Season: Christmas 2008

Genre: Seasonal/ /Comedy/ Romantic/Slapstick.

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Jon Favreau, Kristen Chenoweth, Robert Duvall, and Mary Steenburgen. With: Jon Voight and Sissy Spacek.

Running Time/Duration: 88 Mins Approx.

Certificate/Classification:   12A (Contains moderate language and sex references).

Seen At: The Trafford Centre’s Odeon Cinemas, Manchester.

On: Saturday, 6th December, 2008.

Supremely talented Hollywood favourite Vince Vaughn is usually known for darker, more adult projects such as Domestic Disturbance, Jurassic Park 2, A Cool Dry Place and of course his own reinvention of the most famous of hotel serial killers: Norman Bates, in the unashamedly identical 1998 remake of Psycho.
   However, this time last year, he made the wise choice of lightening his tastes a little with the delightful Fred Claus. He toned-down on the unsubtle, gross-out, slap sticky banter-esque humour that made him a huge star overnight with his breakthrough role in 1996’s Swingers - followed by the immature, parodying  Stiller/Wilson/Farrell collaborations like Old School or Starsky and Hutch  –of which, 2004’s Dodgeball was my favourite.  
 As a result has gained yet another – this time, family-orientated fan base.   
  One year on, he continues with the Christmassy theme with his Academy-Award Winning cute-as-a-cupcake co-star Reese Witherspoon, in Four Christmases.
   As soon as the gold-coloured magical titles appear, the opulently glittering cinematography, digitally-created snowfall and appropriately-updated seasonal soundtrack set the definitive feel-good mood.  It’ll warm the cockles of your heart during these cold winter nights, whilst making you laugh your stockings off at the same time. The two leads star as Brad and Kate, a couple who are not mad to get married or have children.
  In fact, in the opening bar scene, they even pretend not to know each other, with the first lines of the screenplay being as bold as: ‘You sure can talk the talk – but can you deliver the goodies?’.
  Their idea of Christmas tradition is to be anywhere but with their families at Christmas, repeatedly making up fictitious, increasingly elaborate stories. This time its ‘we’re inoculating children in Burma’, before ending the phone call with ‘Hi-Hop-Hey-Ho-Bop’ – Merry Christmas in Burmese.
   So it poses somewhat of a dilemma when all flights are cancelled and they’re forced to visit each other’s parents for Christmas…
  First, it’s off to meet Brad’s grumpy Pop Robert Duvall, as well as his brother – trained RFC fighter (‘not seen that move in a while!’) John Favreau. Duvall doesn’t exactly warm to his son’s gift of a ‘satellite’ as he calls it. When Brad says that he’s sorted a guy to install it for him, he replies: ‘If you think I’m gonna allow a sex predator into my house, you’ve got another thought coming’. So, Brad attempts to fit it himself with hilarious consequences… His brother’s wife has a tot in toe and is heavily pregnant with her second – so hormonal in fact that she asks Kate in a side-splittingly broad Southern American accent: ‘Would you like to flick my booby?’
   Next it’s on to Kate Mom’s Marilyn’s house (the ageless Mary Steenburgen). This segment is completely upstaged by ninety year-old Gram-Gram, who, when asked what she wants for Christmas replies: ‘I’d like to increase the frequency of what I can do to Grandpa with my hand and with my mouth…’
  Whilst Kate is frantically trying to retrieve a secret ‘magic-marker’ pregnancy-test (shock) from hyperactive toddlers inside of her worst fear (the dreaded jump-jump bouncy castle, Marilyn decides to reminisce over an old photo album. Brad discovers that Kate went to Fat Camp and was in fact: ‘Not a boy named Bjorn who was a twin that got jealous and ate the other baby in the womb’. Talking of babies, Brad has a terrible aversion to projectile-vomiting – ‘I wanna do it too!’.
  Then we meet Carrie’s Sissy Spacek, who plays Brad’s kind-hearted Mom Paula, whom Duvall earlier refers to as: ‘A common street whore’ due to the fact that she ran off with Brad’s best friend from school. Brad’s only feelings towards him are: ‘Now you’re sleeping with my Mom and it’s a little bit weird for me’. During the electronic version of charades, as well as being far to eager with the bleeper, Paula lets Kate in on the rather embarrassing fact that Brad: ‘Breast fed until he was five’.
   These are only a few examples of the one-liners featured in the belly-laugh inevitable, razor-sharp screenplay.
  The chemistry between the two leads is pure Christmas magic as they just bounce off each other with immaculately confrontational comic-timing, similar to Ben Affleck and Christina Applegate in 2004’s Surviving Christmas. Surprising, both festive favourites received a distinctly frosty reception from the critics. This hilarious, pitch-perfect comic caper obviously didn’t warm their cold hearts, but certainly raised mine to near boiling-point with its festive cheer. Never before have I laughed so much in a cinema, definitely not the Christmas turkey most people say it is, but rather a comforting and delicious Christmas pudding!

  Rating:****
Image result for four christmases poster

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