Film Review: Dinner for Schmucks

You can tell by the amount of pieces I have posted in this short amount of time that I am extremely bored. Either that or I am again attempting to put off the iTunes task mentioned in the last entry. Yes...yes that seems more likely.


Anyhoo, tonight I ventured to the cinema to take advantage of the only good thing to ever come from being with Orange, Orange Wednesdays, in order to see Dinner for Schmucks. As a massive Anchorman fan boy, any film starring both Paul Rudd and Steve Carell is one that i can not miss. This latest outing from two of Mr Apatow’s favourite sons is no let down. Dinner for Schmucks is a hilarious film, one that guarantees a laugh a minute but yet still delivers a powerful moral that doesn’t fail to hit home. The message in question here is that one should not lose track of who they really are in order to get ahead in life. Corny as it may sound, the film combines horrifically cringe worthy moments, especially those involving Carell and Rudd’s stalker, and smart and genuine interaction from the two leads, who you really relate to, in order to portray this moral whilst avoiding the typical clichés and making you literally wet yourself along the way (no joke i was about 30 seconds away from an accident, not really to do with laughing but more with the damn slushy drink I consumed before the end of the adverts...).

The mix of the serious with gross out, cringe moments and typical Carell craziness (reminiscent of the Brick character in Anchorman) just seems to work with effortless ease. Think a cool, funky bastardisation of Anchorman and every fable you have ever read as a child. What you get is an incredibly funny film with a serious, yet subtle undertone.

A must see film, whether you are a fan of Carell and/or Rudd or unfamiliar with their films. The endearing, yet enormously cringe worthy, nature of Carell’s mouse obsessed taxidermist appeals to your inner child, and the possibly long forgotten soft-gooey centre you thought you were too cool to possess any more, whereas Rudd’s typically straight faced character perfectly represents the frustration and anger one would naturally feel in the situations addressed. The juxt apposition of the two is perfect and makes for one hell of a film.