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Dinner for Schmucks is a rambling, overlong, and unfunny comedy that is even worse than its title implies.
This pointless 2010 comedy stars Paul Rudd as Tim, a business executive who is promised a promotion if he brings the right person to a monthly dinner held by his boss, where his employees are instructed to bring the biggest idiot they can find so that they can make fun of the dumbest guest and actually give him a trophy as the evening's biggest idiot. Tim accidentally meets Barry (Steve Carell), a nerd who is into mouse taxidermy and before he actually goes to the dinner, ends up methodically destroying Tim's life, primarily by ruining his relationship with his girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) by bringing a crazed stalker named Darla (Lucy Punch) into his life and messing up an important business dinner with clients from Switzerland.
Despite my opening remark about this movie, it was the title of the film that initially attracted me to this film but I learned you definitely can't judge a film by its cover. Let's start with a rambling screenplay that's all over the place and tries to cover so much ground that interest cannot be sustained for the film's unbelievably ridiculous running time. The section of the film where Barry ruins Tim's life just goes on way too long and has nothing to do with the original premise of the film. The story going straight from Barry and Tim's meeting straight to the dinner of the title might have been a good idea, but this part of the movie is just as ridiculous as the rest of it, adding a layer of mean-spiritedness to the boredom and stupidity that set in 45 minutes ago.
Jay Roach's direction is as all over the place as the screenplay and the performances aren't much better. Rudd and Carell are fighting the script all the way and Punch is over the top as Darla as is Jemaine Clement as an eccentric artist who has the hots for Tim's girlfriend. As much as I love Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, this movie is a mess. Jay Roach had much better luck a decade earlier with Meet the Parents.
This pointless 2010 comedy stars Paul Rudd as Tim, a business executive who is promised a promotion if he brings the right person to a monthly dinner held by his boss, where his employees are instructed to bring the biggest idiot they can find so that they can make fun of the dumbest guest and actually give him a trophy as the evening's biggest idiot. Tim accidentally meets Barry (Steve Carell), a nerd who is into mouse taxidermy and before he actually goes to the dinner, ends up methodically destroying Tim's life, primarily by ruining his relationship with his girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) by bringing a crazed stalker named Darla (Lucy Punch) into his life and messing up an important business dinner with clients from Switzerland.
Despite my opening remark about this movie, it was the title of the film that initially attracted me to this film but I learned you definitely can't judge a film by its cover. Let's start with a rambling screenplay that's all over the place and tries to cover so much ground that interest cannot be sustained for the film's unbelievably ridiculous running time. The section of the film where Barry ruins Tim's life just goes on way too long and has nothing to do with the original premise of the film. The story going straight from Barry and Tim's meeting straight to the dinner of the title might have been a good idea, but this part of the movie is just as ridiculous as the rest of it, adding a layer of mean-spiritedness to the boredom and stupidity that set in 45 minutes ago.
Jay Roach's direction is as all over the place as the screenplay and the performances aren't much better. Rudd and Carell are fighting the script all the way and Punch is over the top as Darla as is Jemaine Clement as an eccentric artist who has the hots for Tim's girlfriend. As much as I love Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, this movie is a mess. Jay Roach had much better luck a decade earlier with Meet the Parents.