Since “dinner” is in the title let’s compare Dinner for Schmucks to a meal. All the good ingredients are there – a nice helping of Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, a sprinkling of supporting characters like Zach Galifianakis and Jemaine Clement, a dash of comedy and a pinch of heartfelt meaning. Mix it all together and you should get a fairly decent movie. Guess someone mixed it wrong.

And how can that be? It was even taken from a French recipe! Dinner for Schmucks is based on the 1998 award-winning French film Le Diner de Cons. While I haven’t seen the original, somehow I don’t think this film would quite match up. It amounts to an inconsequential, not-that-funny, mid-summer placeholder.

Here I was thinking that the pairing of Rudd and Carell could do no wrong. They’ve successfully shared the screen before in Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and played off each other hilariously in my favorite Moviefone’s Unscripted clip. I knew Rudd had the ability to play a great straight man to Carell‘s bumbling idiot. And I also knew that Carell specializes in bumbling idiots. Here’s the problem though – in this movie, Rudd plays it a little too straight, and Carell goes full-idiot (something like full-retard, I should think). At this point in Rudd‘s career he should be given more to do, not less. Where was the impeccable comedic timing he showed in I Love You, Man? Where was the hilarious exasperation he portrayed to a tee in Role Models? Meanwhile, Carell is coming dangerously close to catching the Will Ferrell syndrome. Which is to say, employing essentially the same shtick in every movie he does.

Let’s recap the plot, shall we? Rudd plays Tim, an ambitious businessman, already living beyond his means in an attempt to somehow impress his sophisticated French girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) enough so she’ll marry him. One day in a meeting with the big shots (which include Bruce Greenwood, Ron Livingston and Larry Wilmore), Tim pitches an idea that gets him noticed. Something involving a Swiss heir, old World War I bombs…and lamps. Yeah, I dunno either, but the bosses go for it. They want to put him through a final test before they officially promote him: A dinner…for schmucks. But they never outright call it that. (Oddly, the word “schmuck” is never uttered.)

All the top execs bring idiot guests and then make fun of them behind their backs. Biggest idiot gets a prize at the end. If that sounds cruel, it’s because it is. Tim is conflicted, especially when his girlfriend expresses her distain for the idea, but when an idiot named Barry (Carell) practically falls into his lap (or in front of his car, as it were) Tim can’t help but take it as a sign.

What he quickly realizes, though, is that Barry is practically foaming at the

mouth for a best friend. He’s an IRS worker with a penchant for taxidermy. Mousterpieces, to be exact. He dresses up dead mice into cute little scenarios – it’s actually a lot more endearing than you might think. Needless to say, the friendless Barry clings on to Tim like Saran wrap, becoming messily tangled in his life faster than you can say “schmuck.” Barry’s well-meaning nature combined with his lack of brain cells leads to one disaster after another for poor Tim. And those disasters, while meant to be funny, are merely cringeworthy – especially one involving Tim’s hot mess ex-fling, Darla (Lucy Punch), and a misunderstanding with Tim’s girlfriend’s artist client (Clement, in a role that could’ve been played by Russell Brand, too).

Everything climaxes into the title dinner scene with schmucks running amok. But not even Zach Galifianakis, as Barry’s mind-controlling, wife-stealing boss, can save this mess. The script lacks bite, the character’s lack spice, everything feels much too wacky and the message (one of tolerance) just comes off hokey. I can’t help but think an R rating could’ve made a difference for the better.

If this movie were really a meal, I’d send it straight back.

Synopsis:

Tim (Rudd) is a rising executive who “succeeds” in finding the perfect guest, IRS employee Barry (Carell), for his boss’s monthly event, a so-called “dinner for idiots,” which offers certain advantages to the exec who shows up with the biggest buffoon.