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Starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, “Dinner for Schmucks” sends in the clowns

BY NANCY R. MANDELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

The appetizer was delightful and dessert charming, but when it came to the main course, "Dinner for Schmucks" left me wishing for more meat and potatoes. Actually, the main course at the on-screen dinner was lobster — and the object of a pretty funny bit involving a psychic who communes with dead animals. But we digress.

Probably the most politically incorrect film title of the year, "Dinner for Schmucks" is a remake of a 1998 French farce called "Le Diner de Cons" that was an award-winning hit in France and even made some waves abroad as "The Dinner Game." The Gallic version originated on stage, then screen with Francis Veber, the French playwright, screenwriter and director responsible for "La cage aux folles" and several other comedies. On an international scale, Veber appears to combine the talents of Neil Simon and Mike Nichols, but subtlety has never been a quality indigenous to French humor, so it's easy to see how the combination might lose something as it crosses the pond.

If you watch any TV or have been to a movie theater recently, you've undoubtedly seen previews, trailers or clips from "Dinner for Schmucks." And you are probably aware that it stars the popular comedian Steve Carell in the role of, well, an idiot. That's because the dinner in question is a ritual in the corporate world of Fender Financial, an investment firm where executives compete for the boss's attention by outdoing each other in bringing an idiot to a dinner party. The executive who accidentally and quite literally runs into Carell — IRS accountant Barry Speck in the film — is Tim Conrad, a young up-and-comer played by Paul Rudd who acquits himself superbly as a straightman, but even more as an actor whose reacting is a pleasure to watch. There are lots of funny characters doing amusing shtick in this movie, but Rudd is the one character who consistently held my attention.

Working from a screenplay by David Guion and Michael Handelman that opens up the film from its original one-set source, director Jay Roach (the "Austin Powers" movies, "Meet the Parents" and its sequel, "Meet the Fockers") milks the action for all it's worth, producing some good jokes, clever lines and slight gags that merit their laughs. But there are also lots of dead spots where the comedy just doesn't deliver.

Apparently the major innovation to the American film is the inclusion of the actual dinner party — only alluded to in the French version — on screen, an excellent move since it's hard to imagine this "Dinner" as more verbal comedy than visual.

There is a romantic subplot involving Rudd and the attractive Stephanie Szostak as his would-be fiancée. But their romance is derailed by Barry's bumbling efforts to keep it on track, and Julie (Ms. Szostak) almost disappears into the arms of an avant-garde painter her gallery represents, played with broad strokes by Jemaine Clement, a New Zealander featured on HBOs "Flight of the Conchords."

The appetizer I liked so much involves Barry's hobby. An amateur taxidermist, he creates a fantasy world with dead mice he dresses up and arranges in tableaux that mimic great works of art. The creation of these "mousterpieces" (the work of the Chiodo Brothers, a very talented special effects team) provides fascinating background for the opening titles. While they occasionally figure in the film itself, the little creatures return for dessert — the film's epilogue — to wrap things up sweetly. Yes, all's well that ends well, but still: Where's the beef?

This film opens everywhere Friday and is bound to make the top five box office hits this weekend.