As a child, Fredrick "Fred" Claus grew up in the shadow of his younger brother Nicholas "Nick". Due to Nick’s selflessness and good will, he became a saint, which gave him and his family immortality. Fred’s jealousy of Nick and his parents' preference for him cause a rift between the brothers. In the present, Nick has become the modern-day Santa Claus, delivering gifts to the children of the world. Fred has become a repossession agent in Chicago to take them away. Fred lives alone and is friends with orphan Samuel “Slam” Gibbons. After his girlfriend Wanda breaks up with him, Fred is arrested for impersonating Salvation Army in an attempt to raise seed money for an illegal casino plan. Fred asks Nick for bail and seed money. Nick accepts on the condition that Fred visits the North Pole for the holidays to work for it. Head elf Willie escorts Fred to the North Pole. Nick gives Fred the task of assigning children as ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ based on their behavior. Meanwhile, efficiency expert Clyde Northcutt arrives to analyse the North Pole’s dwindling performance on a three-strike assessment. After Fred starts a party in the workshop, Clyde gives the first strike. Fred attends a dinner with his parents, but their constant appraisal of Nick causes him to storm out. Meanwhile, Clyde shreds children’s letters and arranges for the blame to fall on Fred. The lack of backup copies leads to a second strike. After seeing Slam on the naughty list Fred realizes his bad behavior is a consequence of being bullied at the orphanage and that he is still a good kid. He assigns every child as nice. The brothers get into a fight over Fred’s decision, with Nick injuring his back. Unable to now produce enough gifts for every good child, the North Pole falls far behind schedule, leading Clyde to assign the third strike - shutting down the workshop. Fred leaves, taking his money and a gift from Nick. When he gets home Fred finds the gift to be a replica of a birdhouse he had as a child. Realizing that siblings naturally fight but should remain close, he uses the seed money to make his way back to the North Pole. Because of his injury Nick is unable to deliver gifts. Overcome with guilt, Fred decides to deliver the presents. He reminds Nick that there are no bad kids only bad situations and that every child deserves a gift on Christmas. He gets the workshop to quickly make simple gifts so that every child gets a toy. Fred and Willie begins to deliver the gifts but Clyde sabotages their efforts. Nick realizes that Clyde was also bullied as a child which caused him to become troubled. Nick apologizes to Clyde for always putting him on the naughty list, and gives him the Superman cape he always asked for as a child. Disguised as Santa Fred visits Slam and gives him the dog he wanted for Christmas. He tells Slam to improve himself and become a better person. With every gift delivered Fred returns to the North Pole. Fred and Nick make amends. Clyde starts working at the North Pole with a change of heart. Slam is adopted. Fred repairs his relationship with Wanda. The next Christmas the whole Claus family is happily reunited.
Fred Claus was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 20% based on reviews from 142 critics. The site's consensus states: "A slew of talent is wasted in this contrived and overly sentimental Christmas film, which can't quite get the balance between slapstick humor and sentimental family moments". On Metacritic it has a score of 42 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics. Brian Lowry of Variety magazine says the film has many shortcomings but most of all Vaughn and was miscast as his rapid-fire delivery and angry persona did not fit well with the story. Lowry describes it as following in the step of other feel-bad films, "movies so tone-deaf and disagreeable as to have completely worn out their welcome by the time that gush of last-act warmth arrives."
Box office
The film grossed $18,515,473 in its first weekend, and closed on February 14, 2008 with a final gross of $72,006,777 in North America and another $25,831,572 in other territories for a total worldwide gross of $97,838,349. The film became number 1 in the UK on its first weekend, bringing in £1.93m. It held the top spot for one week until it was surpassed by The Golden Compass.
