Granted, we may be a bit tougher on comedies over here, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong. Dinner for Schmucks seems to gleefully waste the talents of some very talented people.
Granted, we may be a bit tougher on comedies over here, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong. Dinner for Schmucks seems to gleefully waste the talents of some very talented people.
In order to get a promotion, Paul Rudd must attend a dinner with his boss where everyone brings the biggest idiot, and the winner gets to move up in the company.
This is a very mean spirited comedy. But that’s not what sinks it. Mean spirited comedies can totally work, like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But when you’re making fun of essentially retarded people (like whenever M. Night makes a movie and expects you to watch it) it’s quite a hole you’re digging for yourself. A very unfunny retard hole.
It’s painful to watch talented actors and comedians like Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Zack Galifianakis, and that dude from Flight of the Conchords be given nothing to work with and try and make gold from straw. Watching comedians try to make unfunny lines funny is a herculean task. They fail, and it’s not their fault.
The fault lies ultimately with the script and the directing. Jay Roach can direct broad comedy competently if not really with any inspiration but if there’s nothing on the page that’s compelling, there’s nothing on the screen. A few funny moments aside, like when we FINALLY get to the dinner, the Emperor has no jokes.
There was the token and expected redemptiveness at the end but it comes off as hollow and contrived. We’ve seen so many assholes onscreen for so long, do we even care that one of them is sorry he’s been an asshole?
With movies like Forrest Gump where someone who is slow ultimately teaches us smarties some wisdom, you know, the retard sage character, there is a nuance to it that can ultimately resonate and evoke an emotional attachment. Here we just get Steve Carell acting like a moron and we feel nothing but pity. Some for the character and some actually for Steve Carell himself for doing this movie.
The weird thing is, this was also a remake of the French film Le Diner de Cons. Hollywood can’t even come up with its own asshole movie?!
It felt like the people in Hollywood who made this movie are so far detached from normal people who go to work every day to a miserable low paying job and try hard not to be dicks, that they simply don’t know or can’t relate to what constitutes assholeness. It’s all the stuff you’ve seen before a million times: Rich boss, New million dollar account, impress the client, new office, etc. bullshit.
Making fun of stupid people. Yes, that’s assholey. We get it. But do you, Hollywood? Do you even know why anymore? I don’t think so, because every character is a one dimensional cliché, which means you don’t understand or you didn’t even try. Paul Rudd’s character is trying to climb the corporate ladder, he’s “stuck” on the sixth floor and yet he’s already driving a Porsche. Yes, quite relatable. It’s this main flaw with the movie that when he develops a conscience, do we even really buy it?
This is a movie without a conscience, which is not a fatal flaw and could actually be interesting, but this movie is without a conscience and without direction, which essentially makes it a Movie for Schmucks. See what I did there? (sigh) Never mind.
–Chris Mancini
