Dinner for Schmucks

In order to impress his girlfriend, Tim (Paul Rudd) needs to secure a promotion. So he decides to accept his bosses challenge; bring an 'idiot' to their annual 'Dinner for Winners'. A competition run by white-collar executives and disguised as a celebration of brilliance in unrecognised individuals. In reality, the meal is simply an opportunity for elitist senior-management types to laugh at some quirky and eccentric members of society. Tim's girlfriend tries to convince him the whole idea is abhorrent. Just as he is beginning to agree with her, he meets Barry (Steve Carell). An IRS worker, with a passion for creating art from taxidermied mice, Barry might just be the perfect man to help Tim win the competition.

The US version of The Office has shown us that Carell can do awkward better than most and Anchorman proved his capabilities of making stupidity funny. However, his character here is completely unlikeable and, more often than not, irritating. His bowl haircut, glasses and protruding teeth, evoke bad seventies sitcoms. A time when this look would have been a stylists shorthand for 'socially inept'. Paul Rudd, on the other hand, is given little opportunity to make us laugh, playing two-dimensional straight man, Tim. Director Jay Roach's previous franchises (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents/Fockers) may not have been the greatest comedies of the past fifteen years, but delivered as and when expected. The problems with Dinner for Schmucks lie in the pacing and the writing. With a 114 minute runtime, it is simply too long. Entire characters and subplots are superfluous. It also suffers badly from second-act-drag, believing that given enough on-screen time we will somehow empathise with our two leads.

Producer Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Bruno), seems to have called in a number of favours from celebrity friends and cast them in every available role. The idea, presumably, is that good performances can boost a weak script into something amusing. Of Course, this is not the case. Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as avant-garde artiste, Kieran, makes the most of his characters nonsequiturs but only manages to raise a smirk at best. The same cannot be said for David Walliams (Little Britain), whose Swiss, aristocratic character, Mueller, is completely redundant in every way. The only worthy gag in almost two-hours is provided by Chris O' Dowd (The I.T. Crowd) as a blind swordsman. However having only a handful of lines and appearing twenty minutes before the credits roll, its far too little, far too late.

Dinner for Schmucks starts with a premise full of comedic opportunities, but spends the next hour and a half ignoring these. The original, a French film from 1998 entitled The Dinner Game, was a social satire focusing on the ridiculous measures the aristocracy will go to amuse themselves. It was full of witty dialogue and, at 80 minutes long, it worked. As often happens, Hollywood seems to have missed the point and delivered a broad and bland remake.

I think it was the great comedian Edmund Gwenn who made the statement that "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." That is probably true but I am convinced that there are some actors who can make comedy look easy. At his best, Steve Carrell does just that. In 'Dinner for Schmucks' he occupies the role of Barry Speck, a blithering idiot for whom life is a jolly holiday and cynicism is a notion that seems to have passed him over. Barry's view of the world is devoid of irony or whimsy, he stares blankly with wide eyes and a stupid grin and never seems to understand what is happening right in front of him.

Let me give you an example. Near the beginning of the movie, Barry is being seduced by a blond bimbo who tells him that she thinks she needs a spanking. We get this exchange:

The Blond: "I'm a naughty school girl. I've been bad." Barry: "You look a little old to be a school girl" The Blond: "You're my schoolmaster. I need to be punished." Barry: "I'm not really qualified for that. I work for the IRS."

That kind of idiocy makes Barry the perfect tool for Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd), a mid-level financial executive who curries favor with his implacable boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood) when he manages to sell a Swiss billionaire on the idea of turning defective bombs into effective, yet unattractive, lamps. Fender is impressed and invites Tim to an annual dinner party at his mansion, a "Dinner for Winners" in which the purpose is for each guest to bring the biggest idiot they can find. The guest with the most entertaining idiot wins a trophy.

The journey getting to that dinner party mostly involves Tim trying to survive Barry's idiocy. He has a way of saying and doing the most outrageous things while maintaining a demeanor that lets us believe that he hasn't the slightest clue that his behavior is the least bit odd, even his hobby of making cute dioramas with dead mice.

The first half of the film is genuinely funny, as it observes Barry and his world as he looks out with wide eyes, a goofy smile. Yet, the rest of the movie is spotty. Once we get to know Barry, the movie tries to mix a riot of slapstick comedy with moments of sentimentality that are mostly made up of half-baked speeches about the value of friendship.

The third act gets the film back on track somewhat as we finally arrive at that dinner party. What works are the simple observations about Barry and the other morons in attendance (one of whom is Jeff Dunham who is in a marital spat with one of his dummies). Those characters are funny but the scene goes overboard with a very long battle involving Barry and a nitwit mind-reader named Thurman Munch (Zach Galifianakis) who wears Dickies over his shirts and has a self-satisfied autobiography called "Your Mind Is My Puppet". The scene quickly spirals into a very bizarre area reminiscent of some of Monty Python's lesser sketches.

Steve Carrell is the the entire reason for seeing 'Dinner for Schmucks'. His wonderful performance is pitch perfect, playing a lovable dolt who genuinely believes what he says, even when he confesses to Tim that the reason his wife left his that "I lost her clitoris". To see the deadpan look in his eyes is to understand that Barry believes this statement completely. It is also possibly to understand why his wife really left him.

*** (of four)

Let me cut the chase, I do know which movie I'm reviewing, I do give Dinner for Schmucks a 10 out of 10 and I do consider it my 6th favorite movie, let me tell you why. Dinner for Schmucks it's not only a clever, well-acted and hilarious comedy, it's comedy with lots of heart and although it's a bit stupid it's definitely my 6th favorite movie. Jay Roach (The Fockers) did a terrific job with everything. Steve Carell, well, I'll have to write about him on a single paragraph, cause he was just... Paul Rudd was great, he played mature and funny. Zach Galifianakis, well, I'll join him to Steve's paragraph. Sow, Dinner for Schmucks is a terrific movie, it's not for everybody but it is for me, it's a light-hearted hilarious and stupid comedy that I just have re-watched thousands of times and I can't seem to get tired of. The soundtrack by Theodore Shapiro was excellent and gave this movie a certain atmosphere that I just loved 100%, the song "Fool on the Hill" (The Beatles) right at the beginning is genius and along the movie goes on you find many appealing themes and then at the credits you here an amazing song from Theodore, overall, I loved the soundtrack. STORY: Tim (Paul Rudd) has a great job and a great girlfriend and they're both in a great place at life. Tim is about to get a new office and an awesome promotion, but first, he'll have to appear at his boss' dinner that he hosts once a month, that dinner consists on every worker bringing an idiot person and the most idiot person of the dinner will win. Tim was definitely not going, but later, he has second thoughts when he accidentally runs over Barry (Steve Carell), a harmless guy who's work is at IRS and who's hobby is to make sets and pictures with dead mice. MY OPINION: The plot was amazing, it was full of hilarious stuff and fun stuff, I loved it.

Steve Carell was purely fantastic, his glasses, his teeth and his blonde hair, he was just fantastic and he stole me a bit of oxygen if you know what I mean, Steve was extremely hilarious and no one could play his role better than he did, he was funny and idiot but he played a sweet guy that we all wish to meet, he was unforgettable. Zach Galifianakis was truly genius, his orange ... (I think it's worth being seen without knowing) and his hilarious laugh makes his performance be unique and highly unforgettable. The chemistry between Steve and Zach was fantastic and the scene where they both imaginary fight is a movie classic.

Overall, Dinner for Schmucks is my 6th favorite movie without any doubts, it's funny, heart warming, very well-acted, hilarious, entertaining, fun, very well directed, very well written and still, I don't know how is it so much underrated- Highly recommended. Unforgettable comedy. 6th Best Movie of All Time.

This movie is flawed, unfunny and poorly written almost all the way through. They deliver what could arguably be THE most annoying movie character of all-time with the Steve Carell character. Then, they proceed to have him grate on your nerves for about an hour. After that, the writers of this film apparently want you to feel sympathy for him simply because he's a human being. That didn't work for me. Paul Rudd is the straight man you identify with that has to endure the dumbest characters and moments possible but, honestly, very little of the stupidity is actually funny. I award points for the crazed stalker ex-lover but not much else in this waste of film. For some reason, I cared enough to see how the dinner turned out but for the life of me, I really don't know why.

An Americanised remake of the French comedy Le Diner De Cons (1998), Dinner For Schmucks puts together an admirable cast of comics, including Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Jemaine Clement (of Flight Of The Concords fame) and Zach Galifianakis. I understand that his star is growing rapidly, but his name is just too hard to type, so for the rest of this article he will be 'Fat Jesus.' Nonetheless, this film delivers laughs and emotion in satisfying doses, and something I would definitely recommend.

Paul Rudd plays Tim, who works a nothing job in Generic Financial Firm #17, until his superiors offer him the chance at a promotion. The catch? He must impress at a dinner hosted by his boss, at which all employees must bring along the most idiotic guest they can find in the hope of taking out first prize. Enter Steve Carell's Barry, IRS employee and amateur taxidermist, whose unique 'skill' with turning dead mice into works of art makes him the perfect candidate. Also circling the plot is Tim's diminishing relationship with girlfriend Julie, who no longer has feelings for the corporate drone Tim has become.

The acting is competent overall, but two performances stand out and really give this film a kick. Clement seems to take great pride in his character: a pretentious artist whose hobbies include tantric sex and living amongst goats. In fact, his character is reminiscent of Russell Brand as Aldous Snow (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek), but Clement comes right out of left field with excellent line delivery and tone, coupled with some fantastic physical comedy.

Paul Rudd may receive top billing, but make no mistake…Steve Carell drives this film. Just about every line that comes out of Barry's mouth is gold, and a testament to the effort put into the screenplay. But it is the dimension, as opposed to just the humour, of Barry's character that makes him so engaging. He invokes real sympathy in a couple of emotional scenes that prove him to be much more than just a 'schmuck.' And his absurdist chemistry with Fat Jesus during the climactic scene is nothing short of hilarious.

As soppy as it sounds, the film drives home a nice moral about how all people, regardless of hobby or intellect, all crave the same feelings of friendship and compassion in their lives. One scene in which Barry effectively questions all that he has achieved in his life is particularly heart wrenching and although it sets the foundation for an admittedly cliché ending, it is pleasing to see a film that markets itself as a first-string comedy still putting emphasis on genuine affection and character.

When using a number system to rate films for as long as I have, one begins to develop a conscious idea about what number represents certain films. In my book, anything ranked at eight or above typically constitutes either a classic, or a film I think will be looked upon as a classic in the next twenty years. Dinner For Schmucks dosen't rank quite so high, but it puts up a great fight.

*There's nothing I love more than a bit of feedback, good or bad. So drop me a line on jnatsis@iprimus.com.au and let me know what you thought of my review.*