Dinner for Schmucks

Dinner for Schmucks
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jay Roach
Screenplay by	David Guion Michael Handelman
Based on	Le Dîner de Cons by Francis Veber
Produced by	Walter F. Parkes Laurie MacDonald Jay Roach
Starring	Steve Carell Paul Rudd Jemaine Clement Jeff Dunham Bruce Greenwood Ron Livingston
Cinematography	Jim Denault
Edited by	Alan Baumgarten Jon Poll
Music by	Theodore Shapiro
Production companies	DreamWorks Pictures Spyglass Entertainment Parkes + MacDonald Productions Everyman Pictures Reliance Entertainment
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	July 30, 2010 (2010-07-30)
Running time	114 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$62.7–69 million
Box office	$86.9 million

Dinner for Schmucks is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Jay Roach and based on Francis Veber's 1998 French film Le Dîner de Cons.

Starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd with Jemaine Clement, Jeff Dunham, Bruce Greenwood and Ron Livingston in supporting roles, the film tells the story of a rising executive who finds out that his work superiors host a dinner celebrating the idiocy of their guests. He questions it when he is invited, just as he befriends a man who would be the perfect guest.

Dinner for Schmucks was released in theaters on July 30, 2010 by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures and grossed $86.9 million against a $69 million budget.

Plot

Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd) comes up with a way to get wealthy businessman Martin Mueller (David Walliams) as a client. Impressed by Tim's ingenuity, his boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood) says Tim is a candidate for a promotion but wants to get to know him better. He invites him to a dinner in which he must find and bring an eccentric person with a special talent to be mocked by the executives; the winner earns a trophy and the executive that brought him or her gets glory. Tim excitedly tells his long-time girlfriend, Julie (Stéphanie Szostak), about the possible promotion and dinner but she is offended by the idea of inviting strange people to a dinner just to mock them and tells him to refuse the invitation.

The next day Tim accidentally hits Barry Speck (Steve Carell) with his car when Barry tries to retrieve a dead mouse from the road. Witnessing Barry's bizarre behavior, including taxidermy and arranging mice into dioramas based on famous artwork, known as "Mousterpieces", Tim realizes he is the perfect idiot for the dinner. Julie finds out Tim is inviting Barry to the dinner and leaves their apartment after Tim insists on going, stating he has to in order to continue providing for them. Barry shows up at Tim's apartment thinking that the dinner event was that same evening, and accidentally invites over Darla (Lucy Punch), a female pro wrestler Tim once had a one night stand with and who is obsessed with him. After Tim angrily scolds Barry for inviting Darla over and informs him who she is, Barry takes it upon himself to keep Darla away from Tim and accidentally ends up confronting Julie returning to the apartment. Their conversation leads her to believe Tim is cheating on her and she once again leaves. After Tim realizes what Barry has done he believes Julie may be at the home of Kieran Vollard (Jemaine Clement), an artist whose work she is selling at a gallery and who has expressed an interest in her.

Tim and Barry sneak into Vollard's apartment but learn that he is at his ranch. The two return home and Barry lets Darla into the house. Julie calls and asks Tim if he's having an affair and Darla steals the phone and stuffs it down her pants. The call ends abruptly, giving Julie the impression that Tim is, in fact, cheating on her. While Tim hides in his bedroom trying to reach Julie, Darla and Barry get into a bar-style fight, scaring Darla away.

Barry offers to take Tim to his job at the IRS to find Vollard's ranch address, where they meet up with Barry's boss and rival, Therman Murche (Zach Galifianakis) who claims to have the "talent" of mind control, and has authored a book about his talent. Therman is also revealed to have stolen Barry's ex-wife after Barry caught them cheating. Barry, Tim and Therman have a strange encounter at the IRS office, which only results in Tim getting audited. Tim leaves the next day for a brunch with the Mueller and his wife but Barry crashes it, bringing Darla along pretending to be Julie. Tim is pushed by Barry into asking Darla to marry him, and Julie walks in during the proposal. Tim and Barry chase Julie down to Vollard's ranch, where Tim finally snaps at Barry about his actions.

To his surprise, Tim finds Barry already at the dinner party, having forgiven Tim for his outburst. Barry's antics along with his "Mousterpieces" are a hit with the group, and he is seemingly a shoo-in for the trophy. Unexpectedly, however, Therman arrives as the "guest" of another executive, embarrassing Barry with his mind control. Tim then tells Barry everything and, after some encouragement, gets Barry to defeat Therman by using his own powers of "brain control". Fender congratulates Tim on bringing Barry to the dinner as his idiot, and Tim, offended, insults Fender before defending Barry. The other guests then learn they were brought to the dinner only to be mocked, leading to a chaotic brawl between the guests and the executives. The brawl ultimately leads to Mueller losing his finger and prized family ring and Fender's mansion burning down.

After returning to Tim's apartment, Tim and Julie manage to reconcile with Barry's help. Tim is fired as is Julie after Barry makes Vollard realize it would be a problem to have her continue working for him. Tim and Julie marry, Barry gets to have sex with Darla and also does some artwork with Vollard while Therman writes a book in a mental hospital.

Cast

• Steve Carell as Barry Speck
• Paul Rudd as Tim Conrad
• Stéphanie Szostak as Julie
• Jemaine Clement as Kieran Vollard
• Lucy Punch as Darla
• Zach Galifianakis as Therman Murch
• Bruce Greenwood as Lance Fender
• Ron Livingston as Caldwell
• Andrea Savage as Robin
• David Walliams as Martin Mueller
• Lucy Davenport as Birgit Mueller
• P. J. Byrne as Davenport
• Octavia Spencer as Madame Nora
• Jeff Dunham as Lewis / Diane
• Chris O'Dowd as Marco
• Kristen Schaal as Susana
• Patrick Fischler as Vincenzo
• Randall Park as Henderson
• Larry Wilmore as Williams
• Blanca Soto as Catherine
• Nick Kroll as Josh
• Alex Borstein as Martha Speck

Production

The budget for the film was split between the distributor Paramount Pictures, as well as DreamWorks Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment. The production budget was $69 million, but with tax credits the cost came in at $62.7 million. Filming of the dinner scene took place at the same location as was used for Wayne Manor in the 1960s Batman television series.

Dinner for Schmucks is the American adaptation of the French film Le Dîner de Cons (literally, "The Dinner of Idiots"). The film retains many familiar elements of the original, with the basic plot, including the involvement of the taxation authorities and the love triangle around the main character Tim. In the remake, however, Tim is made much more sympathetic (this is the first dinner he has participated in, and he is not in fact having an affair or deliberately cheating on his taxes), and the actual dinner is shown. Director Roach describes the film as "inspired by" the original rather than a remake.

Title

Debate ensued about the title's usage of the Yiddish word schmucks which is a mild cultural insult similar to "idiot" which technically refers to 'male genitals'. Debbie Schlussel asked whether the title should have been Dinner for Schlemiels as it would better describe the clumsy character played by Steve Carell. Responding in The New York Times, critic Michael Cieply determined that the intent was to be ambiguous as to which of the two main characters, played by Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, was the intended idiot.

In The Forward, Laura Hodes suggested that 'schmucks' correctly referred instead to the behavior of the film's antagonists, the bosses of Rudd's character.

Release

Dinner for Schmucks was pushed back a week to July 30, 2010, to avoid competition with Salt and Inception.

Marketing

As part of promoting the film, the website Funny or Die featured videos of Jemaine Clement in character as Kieran Vollard.

The film's first trailer debuted with Date Night, Death at a Funeral, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The second trailer was shown before select screenings of The A-Team, Get Him to the Greek, Grown Ups, and Inception.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 42% based on 190 reviews, with an average rating of 5.32/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "It doesn't honor its source material—or its immensely likable leads—as well as it should, but Dinner for Schmucks offers fitfully nourishing comedy." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4:

The genius of this version depends on the performance by Steve Carell, who plays Barry Speck as a man impervious to insult and utterly at peace with himself. He's truly a transcendent idiot.

Box office

Dinner for Schmucks made $8.4 million on its first day, ranking number two at the box office, behind Inception. The film earned $23.5 million on its opening weekend, placing it second overall for the weekend of July 30 to August 1. Dinner for Schmucks ultimately grossed $73 million in North America and $13.4 million internationally, for a total of $86.4 million worldwide. The film was released in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2010, and opened on #2, behind The Last Exorcism.

Home media

Dinner for Schmucks was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on January 4, 2011.

Remakes/inspirations

Year	Film	Language	Cast	Director
1998	Le Dîner de Cons	French	Jacques Villeret, Thierry Lhermitte, Daniel Prévost, Alexandra Vandernoot, Catherine Frot	Francis Veber
2007	Bheja Fry	Hindi	Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Sarika	Sagar Ballary
2008	Mr. Garagasa	Kannada	Komal Kumar, Anant Nag, Aishwarya	Dinesh Baboo
2010	April Fool	Malayalam	Siddique, Jagadish, Navya Natarajan, Biju Menon, Jagathy Sreekumar	Viji Thampi
2010	Dinner for Schmucks	English	Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Stéphanie Szostak, Jemaine Clement, Lucy Punch, Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Greenwood	Jay Roach

Accolades

In 2010, Steve Carell was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Actor for his performance as Barry Speck.

External links

• Official website
• Dinner for Schmucks at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Dinner for Schmucks at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dinner for Schmucks at Box Office Mojo