Dinner For Schmucks: We’re Gonna Need Another Place Setting
There aren’t many careers that have a shelf life as short as a top American comic actor. You probably get 5 to 6 years tops before for whatever reason you start making films that aren’t funny. It’s always sad to see this happen, but Steve Carell seems to be deliberately trying to break my heart.
Following up earlier box office success Date Night (which is rubbish), Dinner For Schmucks is another effort produced in a hilarity vacuum. Date Night’s saving grace was a half decent idea for a plot. Schmucks appears to use what would have made for a sketch and stretches it into a 2 hour running time.
Paul Rudd plays Tim, a likable office worker who must find an idiot to take to a dinner his boss hosts once a month to humiliate them to win a promotion. Enter taxidermist Barry played by Carrell who Tim immediately chooses as his date, from which point the funnies issue forth. Or not as it would appear.
It’s not that the punchline of every setup can be seen from space that make this a massive mis-step; or even David Walliams’ comedy German accent. The real problem is that the entire production hinges on one constant; that Barry is a lovable idiot. But he’s not, he’s just an idiot, and that’s very annoying.
He regularly set fire to my goodwill at a moment’s notice by constantly misjudging the tone and making me cringe until I got cramp.
Carell usually walks this line with apparent ease in the likes of Anchorman, Get Smart and The Office. Here it seems he’s lost his balance.
Rudd, another reliable comic actor, is given absolutely nothing to do as the vanilla exec ‘learning a powerful lesson’. Meanwhile the British contingent does itself no favours. Walliams takes us into Allo Allo territory with that accent while Lucy Punch, who has demonstrated her comedy acting chops recently in the BBC Two show Vex, is reduced to an unnecessary crazy ex.
The only glimmer of hope comes from Zac Galifianakis as Barry’s mind reading nemesis Thurman. Don’t get too excited, I did only say glimmer.
It very quickly became apparent that the schmuck in the title was actually everybody who thought this would work, including me. I dared to hope against the odds that on past glories the two leads would raise the material above its station.
Instead I felt like the wife who discovers her husband is cheating but blames herself. “It’s not their fault they’re not funny. I’ll go to the doctor first thing and have my sense of humour given the once over.”
I only needed to listen to my fellow film watchers to hear that there was nothing wrong with me. Not a snigger, guffaw or even a chortle passed their lips. Complete and utter silence. Now what’s for pudding?
