Release Date – 7/30/10
Tim Conrad is trying to get a promotion at work. He strikes up a big deal with a potential client which gets him recognized by the big boss. He’ll get the promotion if he can find a person with “extraordinary talents” and bring him to dinner that weekend. Of course, the boss wants him to find the biggest idiot so they can all make fun of him. Tim feels bad about this and his girlfriend tells him not to do it but then fate strikes and he meets Barry. “Everything happens for a reason”. Barry is a dim witted IRS agent that has a hobby which includes collecting dead mice and creating dioramas with them in famous scenarios. As soon as Barry enters Tim’s life, things start going downhill fast! The movie was a lot funnier than I expected. The trailers really didn’t do it justice and there are a good amount of laughs. But the story and characters are just so ridiculous and out of place.
Paul Rudd plays Tim. He’s the straight man in this story. Not a lot of comedy coming straight from him but more from his interaction with other characters. He’s basically the same character he was in I Love You Man (proposing to his girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak), trying to get a big deal going at work, meeting a crazy character). Except that awkward comedy that shines perfectly from Rudd in I Love You Man doesn’t here. Steve Carell brings most of the comedy as Barry. Going in to the movie I thought he was going to be annoying but he was surprisingly really funny. A perfect character for Carell to play, channeling his Anchorman silliness. Him and Rudd really had good chemistry together. They really rush the whole best friends angle though since the movie takes place over only a few days. Rudd would have definitely kicked this guy out of his life for being a “tornado of destruction”. There are also a lot of side characters such as Barry’s co-worker Therman (Zach Galifianakis) who thinks he can control minds. Darla (Lucy Punch) who is obsessed with Tim and stalks him. Kieran (Jemaine Clement) is an eccentric artist who may be sleeping with Julie. All of these characters interact with Rudd and Carell to provide some really funny scenes.
Director Jay Roach knows comedy. He can do ridiculous characters like in his Austin Powers trilogy or he can make more grounded stories like his Meet The Parents/Fockers series. Dinner for Schmucks is like a hybrid between the two. It has all the ridiculous characters and over the top themes but the background story is grounded in reality. It doesn’t work as well as going one way or the other. Plus you kind of know how the whole thing is going to play out as soon as you read the general premise. If it wasn’t for Steve Carell’s surprisingly hilarious performance then the movie would have failed. Don’t let the trailers fool you, Carell’s doofus character really is a hit. One of the problems is sometimes you might just feel bad for Barry and it takes away from the comedy aspect, but not enough to make you dislike the movie. Jay Roach has a pretty good comedy hit on his hands but not good enough to garner any sequels like his other flicks…. but you never know. Like John Lennon said “You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not…”.
IMDB – N/A
Rotten Tomatoes – 65%
Movie Wiseguys – 7/10