Blogorium Review: Dinner for Schmucks

While this should come as no surprise to regular readers of the Blogorium, the Cap'n has a tendency to notice that trailers, TV spots, and reviews don't often give potential audiences the right impression of a film. Case in point: Get Him to the Greek, which is a considerably better comedy than the ads would lead you to believe. It's reasonably weak audience turnout reflects how not knowing what kind of movie you're headed into can prevent people from going to see what was, in fact, a rather good film.

Sometimes, the trailers tell you exactly what kind of movie you're walking into, but leave out one or two things that might improve your chances of enjoying the film. Such is the case with Dinner for Schmucks, a film I admittedly had no interest in seeing leading up to its release. Finally, I succumbed to the enthusiasm of my roommate and agreed to catch a 7:45 showing. The film is genial, harmless, PG-13 fare with its share of chuckles, so I certainly don't pretend I hated the film. I did not, however, enjoy it as much as the crowded auditorium at the Regal seemed to, in part because the film is content to aim for the widest possible audience (with one or two exceptions).

The film concerns Tim (Paul Rudd), an up and coming businessman stuck somewhere between the sixth and seventh floor of his office. When a seventh floor executive gets the axe, Tim seizes his opportunity to move up in the ranks by impressing big boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood). To seal the promotion, Tim is invited to the executive dinner, where each Seventh Floor big shot (including Ron Livingston, Andrea Savage, and Daily Show correspondent Larry Wilmore) brings the biggest idiot they can find and parades them around in front of the others.

Tim has a big of a moral quandary about this, in part because he wants to impress his girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) with the promotion, but is appalled at what he's being asked to do. Fortunately, his fates change when he (quite literally) runs into Barry (Steve Carell), and IRS agent who also dabbles in taxidermy (specifically dioramas involving dead mice), and can't get rid of him. Barry is a world class idiot, an utterly clueless goofball who lost his wife left him for his boss (and mind-reader) Thurman Murch (Zach Galifianakis). Carell plays Barry along a fine line between "trying to help" imbecile and total ignorant asshole; he's usually trying to help Tim, but predictably, everything goes awry.

Dinner for Schmucks is a remake of the French film Le dîner de cons (The Dinner Game), which I must admit that I haven't seen to this point. I'm familiar with the film, as I filed it a few times working at Edward McKay's, but for some reason I never got around to seeing it.

(This actually brings me to a brief digression, because as a film fan and amateur critic, one thing that really causes me a bit of concern is watching a remake without having seen the original film, particularly if the new film appears to be a close reinterpretation. I learned this lesson a few times, but none more glaringly than when I gave Quarantine reasonable praise without realizing it was almost exactly the same film as [REC], but in English. It's a tricky situation, so while I'm going to try to review Dinner for Schmucks on its own terms, when I get around to seeing Le dîner de cons, the tenor of this review might be shifted.)

I could pretend that Dinner for Schmucks pushes the PG-13 rating, but it really doesn't too much. There's the prerequisite "F bomb" allowed per rating, a lot of light profanity, and a lot of tame variations on jokes about S&M, bestiality, and a semi-running gag about Barry "losing" his wife's clitoris. Most of these are tied to supporting characters like Tim's psycho ex-girlfriend Darla (Lucy Punch) or Julie's client, Kieran Vollard (The Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement), an animal obsessed multi-media artist that practices "sexy sex" with women dressed like birds.

The dinner itself is slightly underwhelming, as most of the "schmucks" don't get a lot of time to do their thing: there's the dead pet psychic (Octavia Spencer), the vulture lover (Patrick Fischler), the beard champion (Rick Overton), the blind swordsman (Christopher O'Dowd), and Jeff Dunham. He probably has a character name*, but since Jeff Dunham is playing a ventriloquist with an old lady puppet that makes crass jokes, I'm going to just say it's Jeff Dunham playing himself with a moustache. Not many of them really make much of an impression, since the dinner ends up being more about Barry's showdown with Thurman (who Ron Livingston brings to dinner) over mind control vs "brain control".

Are there things to like about Dinner for Schmucks? Sure. It's a silly, if predictable, movie with nice touches. Barry's dioramas are frequently amusing, and Carell and Galifianakis frequently make the movie much funnier by virtue of being onscreen together. Paul Rudd is playing a variation on his I Love You, Man and Role Models characters, and he's always watchable as the exasperated Tim. Jemaine Clement is sporting a remarkably similar beard and haircut as Russell Brand, and while he's amusing as Kieran, I couldn't shake that comparison during the film. There's a nice joke involving a potential Swedish investor (David Walliams) and a severed finger, and while the Darla storyline is pretty paint-by-numbers, Punch and Carell have fun during a playful scene that goes awry in Tim's apartment.

Actually, that may be the problem I have with Dinner for Schmucks; while the film is entertaining in a "mass appeal" way, it frequently wants to wander into darker territory but doesn't. I suspect that's due to the rating, but also to the tastes of director Jay Roach (the Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers series), who tends to settle for safer comedies that skirt edgy but never go too far. The result is a generally likable film like Dinner for Schmucks that is silly fun but might not make it into your regular watching rotation. Or mine, anyway. Plenty of people seemed to love it, so don't take the Cap'n's grousing as any indication of what you'll think of Dinner for Schmucks. I'd point most of you in the direction of seeing it, and would not be surprised if you enjoyed it. Just get ready, because it's pretty long; we went to the 7:45 show and got out at 10:00. Even if a healthy chunk of that was trailers, the movie does overstay its welcome a bit.





*He does. In the credits he's listed as "Lewis the Ventriloquist."