“DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS”
Based upon “Le Diner de Cons” written by Francis Veber
Screenplay Written by David Guion and Michael Handleman
Directed by Jay Roach
½ * (half of one star)
Oh…my…GOD!! What a disaster! “Dinner For Schmucks,” the latest…ahem…comedy, and American remake of a French film, from Director Jay Roach is the kind of movie you fire your agents over and I think that whomever represents Steve Carell and Paul Rudd should be checking their portfolios and hope they have enough to live on. But, I will not solely lay the blame at their feet. Honestly, do you expect me to believe that Carell and Rudd, with their level of talent, as well as having a strong presence in the A level of comedies being produced today couldn’t see the quagmire in which they were sinking? You just cannot tell me for an instant that for not even one moment during the filming of this garbage that neither of them said to absolutely anyone, “You know…this isn’t working at all!” Watching a blank screen would have been more hysterical.
Paul Rudd plays Tim Conrad, a rising executive hoping for a major promotion, who finds that his opportunity to rise up the corporate ladder hinges upon his ability to find and bring a particular individual to a private company dinner, where the guests are all an assortment of oddballs secretly meant to be ridiculed. Against his better nature, and against the wishes of his adorably lovely French art curator girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak), Tim’s grand opportunity literally crashes into the windshield of his Porsche as he meets Barry, the lonely, bizarrely socially inept IRS agent and taxidermist who creates mini-sculptures of deceased mice. Tim seizing his opportunity for corporate success, invites Barry to be his dinner guest, an invitation to which Barry excitedly accepts.
As these things tend to happen in comedy films such as this one, Barry clings to Tim’s side like glue by first arriving uninvited at Tim’s apartment, mistaking the exact evening of the dinner. And of course, Barry then systematically and unintentionally begins to dismantle the order of Tim’s life through an increasing ridiculous sequence of events that involve a sexually driven self-involved artist (Jemaine Clement), whom Tim fears Julie is having an affair; a lascivious and grotesque stalker (Lucy Punch) who has been chasing Tim for three years, and a wealthy Swiss businessman (David Walliams) with whom Tim hopes to orchestrate a landmark deal. If that were not enough, let’s toss in Therman (Zach Galifianakis), Barry’s boss and romantic rival who thinks he has the power of mind control. All of these situations finally collide at the titular dinner sequence, which captures more crazy guests than at a backwoods carny goon show forcing Tim to confront his decisions, his behavior and his new, surprising friendship with Barry.
Look…I think that if done correctly nearly anything is ripe for comedy and with a screwball premise such as this one, I really believe that a defiantly nasty comedy lurks somewhere just itching to be made. But, “Dinner For Schmucks,” as it stands, is clearly not that film for a myriad of reasons that I am not sure exactly where to begin. OK dear readers,…let me clear my head, find my remaining brain cells and cobble this together for you. I’ll start small and work my way upwards.
First of all, the film is so poorly paced. This is supposed to be a screwball comedy and by their nature, those films need to be paced rapidly. In “Dinner For Schmucks” however, scenes drag beyond their shelf life, jokes are telegraphed so obviously and terribly and hen they occur, they’re beaten beyond the status of the proverbial “dead horse.” This is sadly a trait of Roach’s who has previously helmed the enormously successful “Meet The Parents” (2000), its sequel "Meet The Fockers" (2004) as well as Mike Myers “Austin Powers” series, none of those films I liked very much at all for precisely those reasons. Comedy is so very difficult as each interpretation of what is funny is so personal and Roach's pedestrian style is just one I do not respond to in the least. Even so, none of those films had the misfortune to be this shockingly terrible and believe me when I tell you that I only laughed during this nearly two-hour film…one time. “Dinner For Schmucks” felt like a collection of the worst "Saturday Night Live" sketches held together by the thinnest of plots and you could feel every minute ticking by.
Secondly, the story construction is awful through its collection of characters that never felt believable. The misunderstandings and Tim’s misfortune are so sloppily convoluted that it makes the tales of mistaken identity seen every week on “Three’s Company” seem almost Shakespearean by comparison. I just could not believe for an instant that Barry is so inept, so uninformed, so naive that he would do so many of the things he would end up doing and that Tim, supposedly the film’s straight man, would not just run the other way or just do the most obvious thing. This, I suppose, is again Roger Ebert’s “Idiot Plot” set in motion, where if Tim just did or didn’t do one thing, the movie as we know it would be mercifully over. “Dinner For Schmucks” spends most of its running time spinning its wheels in situation after situation that betrays any sense of character and reality that I slapped my forehead repeatedly in disbelief. And again, Steve Carell and Paul Rudd should just know better, especially as they has combined their talents with Judd Apatow, a modern comedy filmmaker, who in his films and very best productions, creates works where they are all character driven, a quality that grounds the story in reality no matter how outrageous the film grows. “Dinner For Schmucks,” by comparison, is an undisciplined mess featuring characters who don’t exist anywhere and any world.
Third, if you are going to take on a film that is supposed to be tasteless, then go for it!! Roach and his writers tried so hard to be as inoffensive as possible with the concept that they shoot themselves in the foot creatively. Yes, the sexual innuendo probably goes as far as you can take it in a film that is rated PG-13, but even then, its just juvenile and brutally forced. Its not edgy or risky or dangerous or scandalous or anything resembling something I would think of as just being funny. It was as if Roach was afraid of offending audiences in a film that, by its nature, should be offensive. Which leads me to the grandest point of all…
“Dinner For Schmucks” makes its greatest error by becoming painfully and pathetically sentimental and extolling words of sympathy for the geeks to the point of condemning the white collar corporate folks, and the audience, for laughing at them in the first place. This makes the entire film disingenuous as it is clearly designed for audiences to laugh at the strange cavalcade of oddballs and eccentrics and then at the end we get criticized for doing so?! Roach wants to have it both ways by throwing his film so far up the middle that it cannot have an opinion about anything, making the film, as a whole, shamefully pointless.
Sometimes, when I see films this terrible, I just click them off. On a rare number of times, I have actually walked out of the theater. But sometimes, it just becomes a battle of wills, as I will not allow this film to beat me by checking out of the experience. By God, I will see this damn thing to the end even as it is making me miserable, even as my brain cells are melting from my ears, even as I am realizing that these two hours are two hours of my life that can never be returned to me. I’ll do it. I’ll take that cinematic bullet. Just so you won’t have to.
My experience with "Dinner For Schmucks" was a battle of wills and man, did I lose. People, please spare yourselves from this travesty. For if you don't, the last laugh will be upon you for having sat through this atrocity.
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