FOUR Holidays may have the star wattage of the brightest Christmas lights on the block, yet even that cannot save it from being one over-sized ham-fisted turkey.
Reece Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn star as Brad and Kate, a couple who have spent all of their relationship trying to avoid their families and subsequently their pasts.
Each Christmas they make up a story about jet setting off to some Third World country to help those in need, when in reality they are living it up in some exotic locale.
This Christmas, however, they are caught out when their flight to Fiji is delayed and their frustration is captured on the evening news, which of course a family member watching.
Therefore, Brad and Kate must now spend their Christmas doing the one thing they hate, visiting family.
Only it is four times worse, as each of their parents is divorced.
After each successive horrific visit – which comes complete with its own slapstick punch line – the couple begin to realise that their life together is actually superficial and without the substance that comes with family and celebrating events like Christmas.
They question whether they really know each other at all, and if they ultimately want the same things in life.
This film – which comes in at a hurried 82 minutes – begins promising enough, but once it drags itself deep down into its “original” concept of visiting every single dysfunctional family member they could possibly know, things begin to fall apart.
Witherspoon and Vaughn are not the only actors who appear to be going through the motions; there are five Oscar winners here (including Jon Voight, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek) doing nothing more than an outspoken extra could have been paid a lot less to do.
Yes, it is nice to go and see a film which shows that all families are more or less the same when it comes to Christmas, but do we really need that reminder more than once a year?
Four Holidays (M)
Directed by: Seth Gordon
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon
Rating: two stars (82 mins)