Film Reviews

Dinner for Schmucks

• Rating:
• Director: Jay Roach
• Starring: Paul Rudd
• Details: US/114mins 12A

A remake of a much nastier French flick, this broad American adaptation has its moments but feels like a shadow of the comedy it should have been. When you have two guys like Paul Rudd and Steve Carell headlining, laughs should flow freely and in abundance; add into the mix a director with a proven comedic pedigree and a supporting cast who are capable of carrying their own individual productions and it's almost a perfect storm of talent - with suitably abrasive material. Alas, the stars don't align until the titular dinner, and that may be too late for some.
Rudd plays Tim, an ambitious employee of a shark-like investment firm, who is desperate to climb the corporate ladder. After impressing his boss with some initiative, he's invited to a monthly dinner, where everyone must bring a guest with questionable social skills - basically, an idiot they can make fun of. Whoever brings the biggest moron wins a prize, and a leg up the chain of command. Tim, by complete coincidence, runs over one such prized plank, Barry - played by Carell. Barry makes Forrest Gump look like a break dancing Stephen Hawkins, but Tim's other half objects to his exploiting and needless to say friction ensues.
A repetitive, familiar plot renders the gifted Paul Rudd the straight man. I get it; Rudd is inoffensively handsome and looks like a shirt and tie guy. But in films like Knocked Up and Role Models, that just makes the sardonic lines coming from his mouth somehow funnier. He plays up on an ostensibly straight-laced image superbly, but here isn't given the material, or allowed improvise enough to make it work. Carell's Barry is the one left mugging for laughs, and some he does find; but it's more chuckle-through-exhaling-of-breath than fall-on-the-floor funny.
Ron Livingston, Chris O'Dowd, Jemaine Clement and Zach Galifianakis occasionally pop up and enliven proceedings, but director Roach is far too intent on getting to the smaltzy, lesson-learned ending to protract what should have been the majority of the movie - the dinner. It's by-the-numbers until everyone sits down at that dinner table, and then we're introduced to a bevy of interesting, funny characters, which is frustrating as the movie is nearly over.
All of the above said, the amassed talent manage to make the whole thing watchable, but it still feels like a missed opportunity.

Review by Mike Sheridan