Monthly Archives: October 2010
Dinner Gone Stale : Movie review of “Dinner for Schmucks”
There were a lot of positives around this movie, going into its release & sometimes that may not be the best thing. For instance consider this. Names like Steve Carell, Paul Rudd & Zack Galifianakis (yes I copy pasted his last name) in one breath as a lead cast. Then Jay Roach at the helm of affairs who has the “Meet The Parents” & “Austin Powers” enterprises to his credit. This combination itself brings along with it “ginormous” expectations of a feature that is expected to bring the whole house down. Unfortunately all it did was bring my eye lids down a couple of times. There were a few sparse chuckles and 2 (at the max) LOL moments in its runtime of 1hr 50 odd mins. Now thats not a bargain I am not ready to settle with. The characters most importantly the central make or break “Barry” (Carell) was so inconsistent, that it made me wonder if the writers took a life changing hiatus between their work. Speaking of which David Guion & Michael Handelman (Screenplay) are pretty unknown names. But creating “Darla” (Lucy Punch); Kieran (Jemaine Clement) & Julie (Stephanie Szostak) is unpardonable.
The new hair cut & colour did not help the cause either Steve
Since there is no dearth of purists even in this business, lets try and look at it from another perspective. “Le dîner de cons” the French original that inspired this and “Bheja Fry” (the Indian counterpart) catered to audiences that have specific tastes. However with a Hollywood remake there is an additional burden of ensuring that, it is accepted globally. Now that’s where I feel it went from “alls well” to “nowhere but hell”. It was unbelievably neither here nor there. Although this explanation does not take away the fact that they could have still come up with some meaty jokes.
Overall “Dinner For Schmuks” is strictly for someone who has neither watched the French cult hit or the much talked about Indian version. There were a few that belonged to that group in the theater, last night. Try explaining those those ridiculously loud and oddly placed guffaws, otherwise.
