“Dinner for Schmucks”‘ biggest problem is visible from its opening moments (not that we were expecting subtlety from “Austin Powers” director Jay Roach). Set to The Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill,” the title sequence makes the “Magical Mystery Tour” track seem hours longer than the standard pop song as we’re treated to visuals of carefully posed, perfectly costumed dead mice who are, by all appearances, deeply in love. It’s funny at first, watching the amount of painstaking care and absolute precision that goes into creating these diorama scenes, but seven mice couples in, the laughter dies down. Throughout its nearly two hour runtime, “Dinner for Schmucks” takes everything that starts off funny and wrings every bit of humanity and humor out of it.
Director Jay Roach has done this before, making audiences suffer through the fitfully funny “Meet the Parents” and its unnecessary sequel “Meet the Fockers.” Awkwardness and shared embarrassment are his tools, and he mines every massive misunderstanding and impossible coincidence until you’re squirming and shifting in your seat.
This is a cinematic world where people forget their cell phones, then accidentally exchange them with someone else, then forget about the existence of caller ID and even redial. The whole plot hinges 0n a lucky coincidence: Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd) is angling for a promotion at Fender Financial, and when he finally catches the attention of Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood), a potential raise comes with a catch: he must invite an idiot to a dinner with executives to serve as fodder for jokes. When Tim literally runs into Barry Speck (Steve Carell), he thinks he’s hit career gold. When he’s not working at the IRS, Barry creates wigs, glasses, and perfectly pressed shirts for dead mice (stuffed, of course), and human interactions aren’t really his strong point.
However, Tim’s girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) sees the cruelty in his plan and walks out on him. Things start to go bad when Barry shows up unexpectedly after confusing the date of the dinner, and things only (inevitably) get worse from there. There are switched phones, mistaken identities, and gaffes aplenty from Barry, and it all culminates in the titular meal, where Barry is only one of many strange guests. Tim has the chance to land Fender Financial a big client (David Walliams of “Little Britain”), but he wonders if Barry will help or hurt his odds.
But plot isn’t really the draw in this remake of Francis Veber’s “The Dinner Game.” For all its flaws, “Dinner for Schmucks” has assembled a killer comedic cast, populated with talents that even your mom knows (Carell, Rudd, and the fast-ascending Zach Galifianakis) and those who are still on the rise (Kristen Schaal, Jemaine Clement, and Larry Wilmore from “The Daily Show”). We’re just going to pretend that Jeff Dunham wasn’t even in the same movie as these genuinely funny people.
Just as in “I Love You, Man.” Rudd plays it straight, while Carell somehow invents an entirely different brand of awkward from his uncomfortable roles in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “The Office.” Barry is painful to watch, often hilariously so, proving Carell’s ability to rise above the mediocre material. But as funny as Carell is, Galifianakis, Schaal, and Clement (as an artist and Tim’s magnetic, romantic rival) are the best parts of the film.
“Dinner for Schmucks” is entirely predictable and too kind. Of course, for a Paramount-backed film, we weren’t expecting true cruelty, but we would have loved to have seen some meanness à la Neil La Bute (early Neil La Bute, late Neil La Bute is audience cruelty). Unsurprisingly, the film takes the easy way out, giving the characteristic Hollywood ending (plus a few minor, funny-ish details that we’ll refrain from mentioning here). It never fully commits to the afterschool-special-style finale or its nastier bits, leaving it treading some boring, still waters.
But at least it gave us more Schaal than “Toy Story 3” did. [C+]