Dinner for Schmucks

Director: Jay Roach

Writers:  David Guion (screenplay), Michael Handelman (screenplay)

Stars: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and Stephanie Szostak

Steve Carell. Paul Rudd. How can you go wrong? Oh when there is a will there is a way.

The basis of the movie is Tim (Rudd), a flourishing analyst, is invited to a dinner party by his superiors. The catch is that the executives at the party all have to bring an idiot to dinner, and Tim happens to meet Barry (Carell), the ideal guest. The movie is written by David Guion and Michael Handelman the masterminds behind The Ex. Remember that film? Don’t feel bad if you don’t. It sucked too.

Dinner for Schmucks has no laughs, none. I do not even think I cracked a smile during the film. We are supposed to laugh at Barry a bucked toothed, socially inept, walking disaster of a human being. Instead, Steve Carell portrayal is so touching and genuine you fell sorry for him through the film, making some of the scenes just unbearably heart wrenching to watch. Barry is a simple man, who in real life may have Asperger's, who has had the world fall on his simple mind and enormous spirit. So hey, let’s hit him with a car. Have an aggressive ex lover throw wine bottles at him. Laugh at him for his hobbies. What an ass he is for trying to help Tim. Ha ha ha. As you can tell, I did not like the humor is this film.

Paul Rudd is flat in this movie; his usually comedic timing is gone, not because he had a bad performance, because the material isn’t there. Both him and Steve Carell are wasted on this tripe. I can not even pinpoint a single joke or scenario where Paul Rudd was supposed to be clever or comical. He was the straight man to Barry’s zany attempts at friendship. The film does not honor its source material.

In the The Dinner Game Paul Rudd’s character is a despicable human being, who has wealth beyond measure, a mistress, and looks forward to the ridiculing “extraordinary” people at dinner. In this film, we are supposed to sympathize with Tim, whose girlfriend won’t accept his marriage proposal, has a stalker, and can not seem to move forward in his career. So let’s degraded another human being at dinner party! That should really impress your girlfriend. Hey, on the way home let’s go kill that stalker. It’s a double win, she will leave you alone and your boss will have to give you that promotion!

The whole movies builds up to the party for extraordinary people where we see all these “schmucks” Someone who communicates with the dead, a ventriloquist, a mind controller, a blind fencer who won a Olympic medal. Let just say the events of the dinner were inconsequential and end in more slap stick garbage.

The best part of this film is actually the set design used to display the taxidermy work on mice. It is sad when the best parts of your film are the dead rodent displays.

-Crimson R.