Review of Dinner for Schmucks (2010) by Kyle G — 23 May 2012

A weak-willed comedic misfire. Launching its story off of a cruel exercise in spontaneous "new friends" sadism, it has opportunity for a humorous and incisive look at human interaction, observation, judgment. But I think Jay Roach's adaptation drains the original of all of those questions and persists in a lukewarm, easygoing interpretation that also isn't very funny.

Steve Carell has some okay lines and a nice charge-ahead presence, but most of his castmates (Zach Galifianakis and Jermaine Clement especially, surprisingly) are just not very good -- predictable, single-joke, more improv experiments than real flesh-and-blood characters. And the movie seems to treat them all as dice in an uber-delayed game of low-stakes smiley-time.

Its misspent sentimentality is even carried through to a painful, unnecessary epilogue: the smart people are actually stupid and bad; the stupid people are actually smart and good; everything turns out comfortably happy. It's a lazy and dishonorable way to close an interesting premise.