'Dinner for Schmucks' Movie Review

Steve Carell and Paul Rudd reunite after finding success in Anchorman and The 40 Year Old Virgin for Dinner for Schmucks, a mean-spirited comedy that's sporadically funny but mostly just uncomfortable to watch. Rudd and Carell do have chemistry on screen, it's just too bad they've wasted their talents on such a mediocre film.

The odd couple pairing of Rudd (looking like a GQ model) and Carell (made up with a bad wig and ugly teeth) manages a few laughs based solely on appearances, but after the initial chuckles over their looks are over, there's very little worthy of laughter for the rest of the film. Even Zach Galifianakis as Carell's wife-stealing workaholic IRS supervisor who can control people with his mind wears out his welcome after his first appearance onscreen.

Dinner for Schmucks is based on the 1998 French comedy The Dinner Game about a publishing executive who attends dinner parties hosted by his friends in which they each try and outdo each other by bringing the biggest idiot, and the storyline played better when set in France. Unfortunately for English-speaking audiences, the laughs have been lost in translation.

Dinner for Schmucks - The Story

Tim is a mid-level financial analyst who lives in an expensive home with his gorgeous artsy girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) and who's looking to move up at his company. Barry is a lonely IRS employee who builds extraordinarily beautiful dioramas featuring mice in his spare time. The two bump into each other - literally - when Barry steps off the sidewalk to retrieve yet another dead mouse for his work and Tim rams him with his Porsche because he's busy texting instead of watching where he's going.

This actually turns out to be a very fortuitous meeting as Tim had just been invited by his boss, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood), to attend an exclusive dinner party. Tim's been busy positioning himself for an advancement at work, and after coming up with an idea to snare a big deal potential client, this invitation could lead to a corner office with a view and a paycheck that will enable him to impress his girlfriend into marrying him. The catch: the dinner is actually a competition to see who can find the biggest loser, drag him or her to the party, and then sit back and judge who in fact is the biggest schmuck.

Of course the hapless victims of this corporate prank are more interesting than the smug execs who invite them. And of course Barry turns out to be a walking goldmine of schmuckness with his hobby of dressing up and posing dead mice as famous historical figures. But Dinner for Schmucks says it's okay to laugh at Barry because as earnest as he is, as lonely and desperate for friendship as he is, he's got bad teeth, horrible hair, and plays with dead rodents.

The Bottom Line

I keep coming back to the word uncomfortable when trying to describe Dinner for Schmucks. Barry turns into a stalker, breaks up Tim's relationship with his girlfriend, and allows a psycho one-night-stand lady to re-enter Tim's life. Tim meanwhile takes advantage of Barry's clinging ways and means to set him up as an object of ridicule. And all this goes down without the benefit of clever writing or set-ups.

The best part of Dinner for Schmucks are the incredibly complex mouse dioramas which are simply stunning. The stories they tell are moving and the amount of work put into each piece is impressive. Too bad the same can't be said about the rest of the film.

Skip this Dinner as it'll leave you with a bad aftertaste. If you're hungry for something funny, this isn't the satisfying meal you're looking for.

GRADE: C-

Dinner for Schmucks was directed by Jay Roach and is rated PG-13 for sequences of crude and sexual content, some partial nudity and language.

Theatrical Release: July 30, 2010

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