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DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS (Jul 2010) 
Director: Jay Roach.
Writer: David Guion, Michael Handelman, Francis Veber.
Starring: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Jemaine Clement, Bruce Greenwood, Zach Galifianakis, Stephanie Szostak, Lucy Punch, David Walliams, Ron Livingston, Larry Wilmore, Kristen Schaal.
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Movie For Schmucks.
by
Jon Dunmore © 21 Mar 2011.
Steve Carell is a schmuck. And in DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, Steve Carell is a schmuck, a bothersome new friend of Paul Rudd, who is not exactly a schmuck, but can't seem to break into that comedy leading man status that he deserves. We presume his agent and manager and reader must be schmucks.
 Carell and Rudd do a fine job with the uneven material they are stuck with, and are surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast that keeps DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS from being a total waste of time.
Tim (Rudd) is about to be promoted at his office job. To get in good with the executive crowd, he must attend an executive dinner and bring a schmuck as a guest, in a competition to see who can bring the biggest schmuck.
Tim thinks he has hit the loser jackpot when he meets Barry (Carell) by almost running him over trying to rescue a dead mouse from the street (to put into one of his many dioramas featuring mice, from picnic scenes to The Last Supper).
But scatterbrain Barry almost destroys Tim's life before they can even make the dinner, ruining his relationship, his house, and his chances of promotion.
Jemaine Clement, as Kieran the performance artist, steals the movie effortlessly, departing from his FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS character completely, into an avant-garde beargarden of hilarious fetishism.
Zach Galifianakis is Barry's boss, Thurman, who has probably been freebasing on General Zod as he wants everyone to bow down before him; he believes himself psychic enough to hold Barry in a state of paralysis with his mind, which Barry encourages by actually being paralyzed when told.
Built and busty Lucy Punch is Tim's sexually-crazed one-night-stand stalker - a steaming sexy woman who is actually funny as well. Must be the British blue blood.
It's amusing seeing Ron Livingston in a straight-guy office role, the same "type" he lambasted in OFFICE SPACE.
The great David Walliams (LITTLE BRITAIN) in a relatively straight role, the funniest thing about him, his imposing Swiss investor accent.
Bruce Greenwood is Tim's callous boss who holds the dinner; Kristen Schaal and Larry Wilmore (THE DAILY SHOW) are some of the talented cast that keep the movie from sinking, and we even see Jeff Dunham and one of his puppets at the dinner (I'm surprised he didn't win the schmuck competition).
Remade from the French film, THE DINNER GAME (LE DINER DE CONS, 1998), directed by Jay Roach (RECOUNT 2008), DINNER is a reasonable farce that falls apart when we arrive at the actual Dinner For Schmucks! Because throughout the movie, Barry was painted as a true schmuck, but at the dinner, he brings his A-game mouse dioramas, so it looked incongruous trying to make fun of simply an eccentric artist. (It's like trying to make fun of Jackson Pollock; sure, the guy is talentless, but to display the force of will to create so much product that trumpets your inadequacy - that's genius.)
Throughout the story, Barry is an unfocused dweeb, his mind wandering on mundane tangents, with no social graces and clueless on human interaction; his mouse dioramas were the end result of his supposed neurosis. But making mouse dioramas doesn't make you a schmuck - not understanding a woman's sexual advances makes you one, believing your boss can psychically control you makes you one, wrecking your friend's house unthinkingly makes you one. Why is Barry suddenly this poignant, passionate soul in touch with the universe through his art?
To get the Movie Message across, of course.
Shhhh-boing!! Message received! Turns out the real schmucks are the people holding the dinner, because they cold-heartedly laugh at others less fortunate than themselves... But hang on! There's a difference between people "less fortunate" and actual schmucks. Schmucks SHOULD be laughed at! Barry, for the first part of the film, was a perfect contender for the title. His character didn't arc to get the message across - it was rewritten, leading us to realize screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman don't really know what they're doing.
What a coupla schmucks!
END
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Biggest Schmucks in the World - Schmuck Ups - Deleted Scenes.
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DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS (Jul 2010)
Director: Jay Roach.
Writer: David Guion, Michael Handelman, Francis Veber.
Starring: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Jemaine Clement, Bruce Greenwood, Zach Galifianakis, Stephanie Szostak, Lucy Punch, David Walliams, Ron Livingston, Larry Wilmore, Kristen Schaal.
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