Dinner For Schmucks

American remakes of French films are a decidedly mixed bunch and successes like True Lies are the exception.  Based on the Francis Veber black farce The Dinner Game, the odds were decidedly against Dinner For Schmucks. But rather than go for a straight remake, writers David Guion & Michael Handelman have taken advantage of the scope a big budget can provide to expand the original idea into some much larger and almost equally farcical. Unlike the original, we get to go to the dinner, and meet everyone’s schmuck. It’s insane. In doing so, they’ve made the story their own, and much like True Lies, Dinner For Schmucks bears only a passing resemblance to the original. That’s not to say it’s as impressive as Cameron’s film (based on a 1987 film, La Totale), but it is a bit of fun.

Dinner For Schmucks is a very wacky film, with humour ranging from the broad to the very broad. There’s not much fine detail in here, but it does succeed in making you cringe at almost every turn in a strangely enjoyable way. Whilst Paul Rudd does a very solid job of playing the unethical jerk with a heart of gold, Steve Carrell is the star and the chaos he unleashes is enjoyable fun. Carrell’s Barry lacks even the slightest hint of self-awareness. He’s just a dope, pure and simple. If he had the slightest awareness of how annoying and destructive his behaviour is, if there were anything less than total (and unwanted) love for Tim, the whole game would come unstuck, but there’s never a wink to the audience to let us in on the joke, and that makes his whirlwind of unintentional karmic vengeance work. A lot of very mean stuff goes on, but Barry manages to remain totally innocent and loveable even though the things he does are far worse than the crimes being committed against him.

The comic talent on show is first rate, and fans of Flight of the Conchords will get a thrill out of seeing Jemaine Clement and Kristen Schall. Clement in particular gets to cut loose as a narcissistic artist who is just as extreme a caricature as Barry, albeit in a different manner. There’s nothing even remotely subtle about anything, but given that Jay Roach directed the Austin Powers movies, you get what you might have expected and it is very funny. Basically, go along if you feel like a chuckle. You’ll bury your head in your hands, cringe and wince, and laugh more than you’d expect to. It’s a bit of fun, solidly executed with a lot of over-the-top gags that the French would be too refined to attempt. That American crassness is its strength, as it piles on the gags so thick that at least half of them will get to you.

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