Film File - Dinner For Schmucks

Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd) is a financial executive on the upward slope to success. A cool dude with an attractive girlfriend, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), whom he's about to ask to be his wife, Tim works at Fender Financial, where his business acumen has been noticed by the head of the company, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood). As part of his grooming for a place on the senior team at the company, Tim has been invited to attend the upcoming monthly dinner at Fender's imposing mansion. Only problem is, he has to bring an idiot to dinner - a little social quirk of the boss where less than smart individuals are asked over to the mansion for the conversational pleasure of these captains of industry. Deciding to put his conscience on hold over a task he's not entirely happy with, Tim finds the perfect idiot specimen in Barry Speck (Steve Carell), a revenue official he accidentally bumps with his sports car one day. Turns out Barry is an amateur taxidermist, giving dead mice a second life by using his skills to dress their expired bodies in tiny human outfits to recreate artistic masterpieces which he calls 'mouse-terpieces'. While Tim sees his new buddy as a leg up on his career path, Barry, on the other hand, sees Tim as more than the driver of the vehicle that could have killed him, but his new best friend. And, in short order, Barry's bumbling good intentions set off a tornado of destruction in Tim's near-perfect life, including the torpedoing of a multi-million dollar business deal and blitzing his romance with Julie - all in less than 24 hours. Jay Roche, director of 'Meet The Parents' and 'Meet The Fockers', adapts this original French film by Francis Veber ('La Cage Aux Folles') into a jazzed-up Hollywood excursion with patchy results. Veber has long been a keen observer of human behaviour, casting an eye to the comic foibles of everyday people who, for whatever unfortunate reason, find themselves at the centre of some absurd situation. His 1998 film, 'The Dinner Game', based on his stage play of the same name, proved a huge hit in France and received six nominations at the 1999 Cesar Awards - the Gallic equivalent of the Oscars. Where the original film was ruthless in its depiction of wealthy people getting their social kicks at the expense of those less fortunate, this American version tries, predictably, to soften the plot's inherent wickedness yet still retain the humour - a task it achieves with mixed success. Rudd works reasonably well as a nice guy trying to make it to the boardroom, while Carell is perfect as the well-meaning sidekick who destroys all he touches - think of the late, great John Candy in any of his roles. Backed by a strong cast anchored by Lucy Punch as a sexual stalker and Zach Galifianakis as a revenue agent who's trying to develop mind control as the ultimate method of collecting taxes, the film whips along with a number of funny sequences despite the syrupy ending that's signposted far in advance. With Rudd as the straight man, Carell owns the film as the badly dressed and buck-toothed taxman, always wafting a mist of repulsive aftershave to disguise the stench of formaldehyde he uses for his mouse-terpieces. Not as good as 'The Hangover', but a decent midweek laugh nonetheless.