Review: Dinner For Schmucks

"Dinner for Schmucks", the new comedy from "Austin Powers" director Jay Roach, centers around an opportunistic executive named Tim Wagner (Rudd). Tim is in the prime position to make it to the big leagues at the financial company he works for thanks to a winning pitch he makes to Fender (Greenwood), his boss. After the pitch, Fender invites Wagner to a somewhat unique dinner that he holds monthly at his estate: each employee that is invited is required to bring a complete idiot to the dinner for Fender's amusement. The employee who brings the biggest buffoon to the dinner is guaranteed to be in Fender's good graces while climbing the corporate ladder at an accelerated pace. Tim's dinner "guest"? A simpleminded IRS agent named Barry (Steve Carell) who manages to turn Tim's life into a total nightmare from the minute they meet.

Based on the French comedy "The Dinner Game" by Francis Verber (who served as executive producer on the film alongside Sacha Baron Cohen), "Schmucks" is a comedy that has more than enough ingredients to make it a successful adaptation. Aside from Rudd and Carell, the cast includes Zach Galifianakis, Jemaine Clement, Ron Livingston and Bruce Greenwood, all talented and quite funny, the original source material was well-liked upon its release over a decade ago (I haven't seen it yet) and the new film is directed by a man who has had his fair share of funny films (the first and third 'Powers' films & "Meet the Parents").


Unfortunately, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. While it's not an outright disaster the way so many American remakes of foreign movies are, "Dinner For Schmucks" (awful title, by the way) just never gets it act together enough to be a success. The source of its issues? The screenplay by David Guion and Michael Handelman, the duo responsible for the godawful 2006 comedy "The Ex" (the only other screenplay written by the duo). It does have some inspired moments of hilarity, but it is also chock full of unlikeable one-note characters (I was ready to kill Barry after a half hour), predictable situations, stretched out slapstick and a neausiating amount of schmaltz. Roach manages to create a few funny sequences here and there, but their impact is dilluted by Roach allowing scenes to play out for far too long and allowing for things to go too far over the top. By the time the film gets to the big dinner in the third act, the film had lost whatever momentum it had.

As for the cast, the performances proved to also be a bit of hit-and-miss. Rudd makes for an amusing straight guy to Carell's schtick, but even he seemed bored by the film's mid-point. Carell, who I am a big fan of on TV's "The Office" and in movies such as "The 40-Year Old Virgin", yields his fair share of laughs in the film. But the character he plays is so irritating and one-note that by the time Roach tries to hit the audience up for sympathy in the third act, we feel animosity toward him more than anything else. Like Barry, Zach Galifianakis' wierdo IRS auditor yields a few yucks before becoming a bore. The same goes for Jemaine Clement performance as wacko artist Kieran Vollard.

"Dinner For Schmucks" marks the second film in a month that Steve Carell has starred in that has underwhelmed me (the first was the animated "Despicable Me"). If the actor is planning on leaving NBC's "The Office" after this upcoming season (Say it ain't so, Steve!), he better focus on picking better projects to star in than this half-baked mess. "Dinner For Schmucks" should have been a full-course meal of genuine laughs. Instead, it's more like something from the McDonald's Dollar Menu: tempting but ultimately not satisfying. PG-13. 112 minutes. Two stars out of four.