Featuring Paul Rudd (I Love You, Man/ Friends) and Steve Carrell (Despicable Me, The Office), Dinner For Schmucks is essentially a film which explores the human condition in an extremely strange manner.
A remake of the 1988 film ' Le Diner des Cons', the premise is that a group of colleagues organise a dinner to which they each have to bring the biggest idiot they can find. The colleague who brings the biggest idiot is the winner.
When he accidentally almost runs over diorama creator Barry (Carrell), who nearly ruins his relationship with art designer Julie (Stephanie Szostak), and his business meeting with impressive Swiss tycoon (David Walliams), he decides to take him to the dinner as his idiot. Hilarity (or not) ensues as the idiots inadvertently outbid each other in their stupidity and nonsensical abilities.
The moral of the story, however, is that people are all special in one way or another, and to mock them for being 'abnormal' makes us as inhumane. Whilst the sentiments are mostly well articulated, the inclusion of Saturday Night Live-style non-humour and banal slapstick reduces the film to a low level, and almost ruins any real credence.
6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment