'Dinner for Sckmucks'

Dinner for Schmucks, based on the French film Le Diner de Cons, is about a young, ambitious, on the rise executive, named Tim (Paul Rudd) who is expecting a promotion with excellent recommendations. When one of his pieces of advice helps the company it catches the attention of his boss, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood). Thus his boss invites him to a dinner, actually a competition, where whoever brings the most eccentric person to mock will get a promotion. With every up and comer there is their arch nemesis, or in Tim’s case the failure of a marriage and just about everything else in his life Caldwell (Ron Livingston). Tim brings the dinner up to his girlfriend, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), an artist, and she says, as anyone else would, going to this dinner is cruel. Tim engaged to her agrees to not attend the dinner until he meets Barry (Steve Carell) by hitting this man who stands in front of Tim’s car to save an already dead mouse for his hobby, taxidermy. As soon as Tim invites Barry to the Dinner, as series of events starts occurring such as a crazed one night stand of Tim’s of over two years ago, Darla (Lucy Punch), finds Tim’s address and comes over, Julie is suspected of going to a former lover of hers, Kieran Vollard (Jemaine Clement) who is the central piece of Julie’s art exhibition, a business deal Tim is suppose to handle possibly a disaster, and all due to Barry having the best intentions for Tim. Will Tim be able to get a promotion and get Julie back? Find out.

This film being in no doubt slapstick, outrageous comedy does not live up to the original as a usual common trend in the movie making film industry. This is not the first film of the summer either when a young executive is handed an opportunity to show their worth to their bosses, example Get Him to the Greek. The most outrageous scenes are the brunch with the Swiss as well as the final dinner, and who wins the best comedian in this film? Well certainly not Paul Rudd because he played the typical character he is handed. Steve Carell deserves a silver medal because he truly did carry the movie however the big trophy goes to Zach Galifinakis, who played Barry’s arch enemy Therman, working at the same IRS agency as Barry but seems to top Barry in every category; being the biggest schmuck, taking Barry’s wife, and even being a better IRS employee. Throughout the film there is a certain sympathy shown for Barry because his intentions, while are the best, make a situation unimaginably worse. As the movie progresses the audience soon learns there are similar struggles with Barry and Tim. The down fall of the film though is the audience laughter comes at the expense of oddball people being themselves. B-