A cena con un cretino

Not only is it hilarious, it has a great message. To be able to tell a meaningful story about friendship, acceptance and triumph over adversity surrounded by physical comedy and ridiculous characters isn't easy to do. This one nails it!

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.*

"Dinner for Schmucks" has a clever title but it needed to spend more time on the main course. The audience is subjugated to almost one and a half hours of build up time before the dinner bell rings. It's not time wasted though, the story does make good use of its two hour run time. However, I felt like I was on a plane taxiing down the runway trying to get up enough speed to take off and once in flight the plane kept dipping and then pulling back up; then it finally it made an abrupt landing and the flight was over.

We are first introduced to Tim (played by Paul Rudd), an investment analyst, who is presented an opportunity to pounce on a new promotion at work. The story is set up as most business tales are told. The boss has an important client, the main character is presented with a once in a life time opportunity to prove his worth and so on and so forth. While in the process he learns something about himself.

The business men (one of whom is played by Ron Livingston from "Office Space" fame) are the typical jerks who will do anything to keep on top of the dog pile. In this particular dog pile they also like to pick on the smaller, weaker dogs. It just so happens that the big dogs are having their "dinner for winners" in a few days. Tim now has a great chance to prove to his boss he will go to any length to earn the new position. The catch is that he has to find a loser to bring to dinner. They then have a contest, unbeknown to the losers, to see who the biggest schmuck is.

Tim finds his loser immediately the next day not by chance but because as Tim so wisely says "everything happens for a reason". Welcome aboard, Barry (played by Steve Carell), here the story starts picking up a little steam. Barry has a unique talent of finding the positive in almost any situation, he mispronounces words that any 5th grader knows, works for the IRS and in his spare time works on his "Mouseterpieces". A perfect fit for Tim. A "Mouseterpiece" is Barry's taxidermy side projects where he takes dead mice and mounts them in familiar historical and everyday scenarios (i.e. The Last Supper, mice having a picnic, Whistler's Mother, etc).

A lot of activity happens in that single night before the big dinner; Tim and Barry break into one of Tim's girlfriend's biggest clients' homes and finds him in a weird sexual perversion act. Next Barry accidentally invites Tim's ex-fling, Darla, over to the apartment and the first laugh riot is finally given to the audiences through a funny fight scene between Barry and Darla. Then it is on to the IRS to talk to Barry's boss, Therman (played by Zach Galifianakis), who is also a self proclaimed mind reader. Have you noticed they still haven't made it to the dinner yet? The next day Tim has a brunch appointment with a potential multi million dollar client where Barry and Darla show up trying to smooth things over. Again the straight man, Tim, and goofy man, Barry, routine starts up and we are given another good laugh. It was a pretty easy set up; take a high pressure situation and place it in any restaurant that has a Maitre d' next mix in a socially inept character such as Barry and something funny is bound to happen.

After all of this we are finally taken out to dinner. The peculiar thing was that the dinner only lasts 15 minutes. This was a shame because the story could have spent more time on the losers that came to dinner. There was some great talent there, one being Jeff Dunham, a humorous ventriloquist who has been working stand up clubs for the last two decades. It felt like the director (Jay Roach) should have pumped the brakes, slowed up and gave these losers some more screen time. We did get another laugh riot when Therman and Barry had an invisible shoot out between their mind reading capabilities. Then it was over with a nice epilogue to the story through Barry's "Mouseterpieces".

Should you see this movie? Ummm…OK, why not? There were some funny bits to it, the storyline was solid and the comedic actors were funny but didn't have to try too hard for the jokes. Rudd plays a good straight man in these situations where Carell and Galifianakis can play off of him quite easily.

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.