Dinner for Schmucks | Teen Ink

Dinner for Schmucks

November 22, 2010
By DevanL BRONZE, Raleigh, North Carolina
DevanL BRONZE, Raleigh, North Carolina
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Based off of the play entitled The Dinner Game, Dinner For Schmucks is a comedy with actors such Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and Zach Galifianakis. The film was originally announced as a great comedy film, but in some opinions, the movie seemed to fall a little flat.

The movie stars Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd) who is a financial executive who is trying to make it with the higher up executives on the 7th floor. Paul announces an idea to make the company money during one meeting and the executives seem to love it. To show that it is possible that Tim could get the open office on the 7th floor, Tim’s boss (Bruce Greenwood) invites him to a “Dinner for Winners” where Tim and other executives bring in “idiots” that they can find and the other executives make fun of the person that they have brought in. Whoever brings the biggest idiot to the dinner wins. At first, Tim decides to decline, mainly because his girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) thinks it is a very cruel thing to do. Then later, Tim accidentally hits Barry Speck (Steve Carell) with his car. Tim learns that Barry is an IRS worker who also does taxidermy as a hobby. Tim thinks that he has found the best idiot around and invites Barry to the dinner and Barry accepts.

The best thing that could have possibly come out of this movie was the cast of stars that was used. The movie had a great cast that could make a perfect comedy movie. At any point in the movie, you could see a famous comedy celebrity such as Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifinakis or even Jeff Dunham. Using these comedians together could make any movie great...except for this movie.

The biggest problem I saw with the movie was the tried too hard to make the movie funny. The actors tried way too hard to get a joke across and every time they did they failed. Also, I continued to see a slight problem with Stephanie Szostak, who played Julie. It seemed that she would be changing accents throughout the movie. One minute, she would sound like she has a french accent and about 5 seconds later, she would have an american accent.

Overall the movie was ok. I think that it could have been a little better with the actors and trying a little less to sell a joke. I think that if you want to go see this movie, you should probably wait until it either comes out on rental or comes out in the dollar movie theater. I’m going to give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.


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This article has 1 comment.


Scheffel said...
on Oct. 10 2011 at 11:05 am
Dinner for Schmucks is a hilarious movie! I was literally laughing out loud almost the whole time. Steve Carell just makes the whole movie too. I like how Barry, Steve Carell, annoys Tim and ruins his life at first but then makes it even better. This is a great comedy movie!