I wonder if at any point during filming Swingers Vince Vaughn thought his career might take him here. “Here” is Fred Claus, a land of candy cane lane sets, green-screened elves, and Paul Giamatti in a fat suit. It’s not a bad “here,” just a curious one; what casting director looked at the guy’s work in Wedding Crashers, Psycho and The Locusts and said “Hey, let’s get this guy to play Santa’s misanthropic brother in our broad family comedy”?

But that misanthropic part is the key. If you’re reading this, you’re likely familiar with Vince Vaughn’s routine in most of his movies. He talks, and talks, and talks, working a chain of free-association passive-aggressive nonsense that whips by so fast his victims can’t get in a word of protest. This more than anything else is what the adults are here for. The earliest teasers gave us a taste for this, showing a typically acerbic Vaughn griping at his extremely famous and kindhearted sibling. Santa’s surly brother, as played by Trent from Swingers. Good times. I don’t know about you, but visions of a PG-13-rated Bad Santa danced in my head, and I was a happy man.

Well, that’s not exactly what I got. When we’re introduced to the Clauses, the young Nicholas is an ideal child, the apple of his parents’ eye. The elder child Fred, not so much. The one-sided animosity only grows when kindly Nick reaches the state of actual sainthood, which makes him, his wife, and his family immortal. Not even the sweet release of death can get Fred away from his family now.

Fast forward to the present. Nick is off doing his thing and Fred is in Chicago, working as a repo man (get it?) and scamming to drum up the cash to open a casino right across the street from the Market Exchange. So no, he’s not such a great guy. He’s even crappy to his girlfriend, a character who represents the toughest obstacle to suspension of disbelief in the entire movie: Rachel Weisz as a Chicago street cop named Wanda.

Fred gets busted for soliciting cash as a faux-Salvation Army Santa, and one phone call and bail later, he’s up at the North Pole, working for his brother to get his startup money. His wintry reception by Mrs. Claus (Miranda Richardson) illustrates exactly how much he hasn’t grown in the years since childhood, those countless centuries ago.

For a little extra drama, an efficiency expert named Clyde (Kevin Spacey, enjoyably cruel) has been sent to determine the viability of Santa’s operation and, if possible, stake it in favor of a cheaper alternative to be stationed on the South Pole. Clyde sees potential in the strife between Fred and Nick. With just the right shove, maybe, just maybe, Santa’s operation will come tumbling down under a storm of family bickering. What’s never specified is who exactly sends Clyde, or has the authority to shut down Christmas… or at least the Santa aspect of it. I can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing.

Everything you expect to happen happens, and nothing you don’t. That isn’t really the point. What is the point is that Fred Claus is a family movie, and the progression is so ingrained in us that it may very well appear in the DNA of our children. To wit: At the beginning, the yuks-to-sap ratio heavily favors laughter. By movie’s end, it’s swung in the other direction. The best (and surprisingly scant) scenes are between Vaughn and the rest of his family, perhaps because those are the scenes that actually deliver on the promise of broken-family comedy shot through with the absurdity of the family being, you know, the Clauses. Perhaps Fred Claus would have been better as a short film, perhaps an extension of the intervention scene where Fred’s loved ones sit him down for some group therapy. As it stands now, it’s merely an agreeable way to blow a couple hours.