DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS

A friend of mine hated Napoleon Dynamite, because rather than laughing at nerdy Napoleon, she was severely uncomfortable because she related to him. I didn't feel that strongly about Steve Carell's "idiot" Barry in Dinner for Schmucks... but he pretty much had me on his side from the beginning. I mean, LOOK at those mouseterpieces!

Clean and pretty Paul Rudd plays Tim, a successful up-and-coming financial analyst just one step from moving up to that newly empty office on the 7th floor. He has a gorgeous almost-fiance, and just knows that true success will be his, not only in his professional life but his personal, if he can just secure that promotion. But there is one last thing, a sort of upper-management hazing. Tim's boss (Bruce Greenwood) invites him to an exclusive dinner where he has to bring a guest. No, not his hot girlfriend. He has to find an idiot. The dinner guest who brings in the biggest tool (for the rest to mock unbeknownst to the guests) is the winner. Tim is uncomfortable with this and his girlfriend is livid when she finds out.

But Tim's idiot literally slams into the front of his car the next day, like a gift from God. The unfortunate pedestrian is Barry (Steve Carell, who seems to be channeling Jim Carrey), an IRS employee with an extremely dim sense of social etiquette, and a hobby of taxidermy.

Now let me get to the taxidermy. Have you seen those postcards of taxidermied (is that the word?) squirrels playing poker, with mini cigars in their toothy mouths? I have one of those pictures on my wall at work. So when the opening credits, filled with images of Barry's mice-in-outfits dioramas unfurled, I practically clutched myself with delight. OK, maybe I actually did clutch myself a little, but that's not the point. I didn't think he was a freak or an idiot inherently because of this. Just because someone painstakingly creates a mini-scene of two mice pushing each other on swings in a beautiful pastoral setting doesn't mean they are crazy. Um. Does it?

Anyway, within a day, Barry basically ruins Tim's life by simply not going away. Tim's promotion is in jeopardy, his girlfriend has walked out in fury, a crazy ex (scene-stealer Lucy Punch) has returned with a special reign of terror, and a new-agey manly man "artiste" named Kieran (the fabulous Jemaine Clement) has horned in on his girl with his musky, animalistic essence. And heck, they haven't even gotten to the dinner party yet!

And that is part of the problem with Dinner for Schmucks. I actually checked my watch at about an hour and a half, realizing they had not even gone to dinner yet. Does it happen? Yes, and it is quite funny (especially the pet psychic played by Octavia Spencer). But it takes its time getting there. How many wince-inducing scenes of Barry doing something cringe-worthy while Tim plays the straight man does it take to get to the chewy center (or "heart") of the movie? A lot.

Yes, the film (of course) ends up having a heart as Tim learns a lesson from Barry ("Gosh! Freaks might not be so bad!"). But I was there long before that. Despite a few good laughs (and a great cast with so much potential), Dinner for Schmucks was a bit too relentless in its meanness and too plodding in its delivery to really grab me for the ride.