Dinner for Schmucks: (July 30th, 2010): PG-13
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Opening Weekend Box-Office: #2 with $23,527,839
Domestic Box-Office Gross to-date: $58,785,547
Gross Revenue: $58,785,547
Budget: $62.7 million
Director: Jay Roach
In addition to the laundry list of successful comedies that both Steve Carell and Paul Rudd bring to the table, Dinner for Schmucks also gained significant comedic potential through its director, Jay Roach. Having directed both the Austin Powers and the Meet the Parents franchises, Jay Roach has proven himself more than capable in guiding comedic talent. From a marketing standpoint, Paramount launched a surprisingly aggressive marketing campaign, releasing numerous trailers, scheduling promotional appearances on Comedy Central, and even starting a sweepstakes through the CW network where winners would be able to dine on the Paramount Studios back-lot. Fans of Carell and Rudd would no doubt be pleased with this newest project, but even though I would normally count myself amongst this group, I have to confess that the film trailers made Dinner for Schmucks look a little too stupid. I do normally find idiotic humor enjoyable, but only in small doses…if Dinner for Schmucks wasn’t careful, I feared that it could potentially miss the mark and only serve to infuriate audiences that were looking for a good laugh.
As a remake of the 1998 French dark-comedy, The Dinner Game, Dinner for Schmucks follows a very simple premise. Paul Rudd plays Tim, a rising executive in a financial firm who is invited by his boss to a very exclusive event. Each month, the top executives of Tim’s company host a dinner where each worker brings a guest that everyone else can make fun of…at the end of the evening, the most outrageous guest is presented a trophy and declared the top idiot. Though he is initially apprehensive of the idea, Tim does appreciate how his participation in the dinner could advance his career, and when he meets Barry (Carell), he realizes that he has come across an individual who could potentially be a legendary participant in the monthly dinner…should Barry win “top idiot,” Tim’s career could skyrocket. Tim pitches the idea of the dinner to Barry as being for “extraordinary” people, and what makes Barry so “extraordinary” is that his primary hobby involves creating artistic portraits with taxidermy mice…let me run that by you again, he poses dead mice for artistic value…no wonder he was invited. Unfortunately for Tim, having the well-meaning Barry around turns out to be nothing short of a tornado of destruction, wreaking absolute havoc on Tim’s personal life…by the time the film’s climactic dinner arrives, the audience is left wondering whether Barry presence at the dinner could possibly rectify any of the misfortune he has caused.
Though I was initially apprehensive of the level of idiocy present in Dinner for Schmucks, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of comedy generated by that same idiocy. Based on the characters within this film, “Dinner for Schmucks” might be the most contextually accurate title in Hollywood history; Steve Carell is an absolute riot as the shockingly idiotic Barry, and the situations he helps create and the lines he ends up delivering are so ridiculously funny that I nearly fell out of my seat laughing at the sheer level of chaos unfolding in front of my eyes. Beginning with the opening frame, Dinner for Schmucks is almost instantaneously funny, and the near-consistent stream of comedy doesn’t relent until the closing credits begin to roll. Steve Carell and Paul Rudd make a surprisingly convincing team, Rudd’s character acting as the anchor that prevents Carell from going completely off the deep-end, and even though the interaction between these two makes the film pleasing enough, the dinner itself actually doesn’t begin until the last quarter of the film, and the insanity present turns out to be an amazing way to conclude the story. Carell’s dead mice are surprisingly entertaining, but some of the other guests truly steal the show, whether it is the lady who can talk to dead animals, the blind swordsman, the guy married to a puppet (a nice cameo by comedian Jeff Dunham), or Zach Galifianakis’ character, the mind-controlling IRS agent. Despite being a remake, Dinner for Schmucks has some truly original comedy, a talented cast, and enough hilarious jokes that you will be tempted to go see it again simply so you will be able to remember more quotes.
Regardless of how much I enjoyed Dinner for Schmucks, I can appreciate that this brand of comedy isn’t for everyone. Steve Carell is the type of actor that you either love or hate…if you are not a fan of his, most of the humor present in the film will probably just serve to infuriate and alienate you further. Even though I have no problem with Steve Carell’s performance being the main comedic draw of a film, given the rest of the comedic talent present in the cast, I was disappointed with how some members of the cast were underused. Paul Rudd was definitely the stable member of this new odd-couple, but he really wasn’t that funny, and after his performance in The Hangover, I expected Zach Galifianakis to be a little bit more of a scene-stealer. Jermaine Clement (of HBO’s Flight of the Conchords fame) also has a few funny lines while playing the eccentric artist, but his character reminds me so much of Russell Brand that I can’t help but question why Paramount didn’t cast Brand in the first place…I can only imagine how funny he would have been interacting with Carell, talk about a missed opportunity. Despite the potentially limited appeal of such idiotic humor, I still believe that Carell has a broad enough level of popularity (think of how many people watch The Office) that I suspect most audiences will simply delight in the lovable buffoon that he has brought to life.
From a box-office perspective, Paramount pushed back the release date of Dinner for Schmucks a week to avoid competition with Salt and Inception, and given the popularity of Inception, I cannot fault Paramount’s decision. However, with the other films that were released on July 30th and the fact that Dinner for Schmucks is the sole live-action comedy currently in theaters, I still expected it to do quite well. I expected the box-office race this weekend to be very close, and though Inception's third week at the top of the pyramid is impressive, Dinner for Schmucks still had a very respectable second place finish. In the end, though the film isn’t perfect and definitely missed a few opportunities, if you enjoy silly comedy, Dinner for Schmucks is nothing short of a masterpiece, and it is sure to continue generating positive buzz. As a movie-goer, your only obligation is to sit back and enjoy.
Overall Recommendation: High
