Movie Review: DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS

What the 'Schmuck'?! This movie was supposed to be hilarious. The dinner part was, but I'm already getting ahead of myself. I am a big fan of the two leads, Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. I liked the idea of the movie - business execs must all invite an idiot to dinner for the sheer entertainment of it. First of all, is it wrong to want to host one of these things for real? Is it wrong that I already know the schmuck I would invite? I went into this movie really hoping for one of the year's best comedies, but ultimately it was forgettable. I laughed a lot harder and more often at Grown Ups.

As I said, the dinner in question is hilarious. It's only about ten minutes though. It's like if you watched Seabiscuit and the horses only did one lap around a track. I sort of felt like the makers could not find enough to do with the actual dinner scene so they filled the rest of the film with mostly unfunny gags and scenarios that were unbelievable - and unbelievable is okay if it's hilarious - and they weren't. There are two parts in particular involving a stalker that are borderline unwatchable - not for parental content as much as for just being embarrassingly bad. There is also an artist character who wants to come across like a Borat meets Russell Brand, but instead just comes off as out of place and annoying (although maybe that's not all that out of place in this movie.).

Carell manages to save a few moments which would make me suggest seeing this on DVD, but with the high price of movie tickets nowadays, I would say it's not worth the big bucks. I would give Dinner for Schmucks a disappointing 4.5 out of 10. I really wanted to love this movie.