Four Christmases - C+

In theaters. Rated PG-13, 84 minutes. Trailer.

Any Vince Vaughn movie is a must-see for me. His kinetic, hilarious delivery makes anything bearable and most films great. Unfortunately Four Christmases squanders his talents and exposes Reese Witherspoon's weakness as a comedic actress. Quasi first time director Seth Gordon (King of Kong) displays a lack of focus and a tone deaf ear with certain sequences, mixing biting humor and stupid montages in the same movie. Click below for more on the reunion of Sue, Mikey and Trent:

The premises of the film is genius: a successful, self-involved couple that always avoids a family Christmas with their divorced clans is stuck going to all 4 Christmases because of heavy fog that cancels their XMas avoidance trip. Their first stop is Vince's dad's (a funny Robert Duvall) house, a protypical white trash military compound teeming with his brothers and their families (Tim McGraw and Jon Favreau in funny roles as cage fighters). There is some funny stuff here, but mostly attributable to vintage Vince. Next up is Reese's mom's house (a cougary Mary Steenburgen) and lots of laughs for Vince with a turgid Reese storyline that goes nowhere. Kristin Chenoweth is funny as Reese's sister, and the Dwight Yoakam cameo (as a pastor) is okay, but the 'performance' by the gropu at the church is pointless and not funny enough to justify its inclusion.

As things get more serious (naturally), the couple heads to Vince's mom's house (Sissy Spacek). She has married Vince's best friend, Gary (Patrick Van Horn - Sue from Swingers), and their interactions and the Taboo game (except for the weepy Reese parts) are really funny. Inevitably, the fun-only with family on the side program for Reese and Vince gets crapped on in favor of family and marriage at Jon Voight's house (Reese's dad).

This movie had the ingredients to be good, but really is just a very poor carbon copy of The Breakup (A-) - replace Reese with Elizabeth Banks and it would've probably been a B. Worth seeing for huge Vince Vaughn fans, but nobody else.