Dinner for Schmucks is kind of amazing and watching it is like watching a skilled juggler juggle a puppy, a kitten, a baby seal and a chainsaw. The whole scene is hilarious to watch but you are just waiting for bloodshed. In this case it goes one better by making you cringe so hard that your skin is in serious danger of tearing off your body one second and almost losing control of your body functions from laughing the next. Then it throws a heap of guilt and takes you to the verge of tears for good measure. It then repeats the process over and over until you are completely spent and maybe need to go home and change.

Inspired by the 1998 French farce Le Diner de Cons (the Dinner Game), Dinner for Schmucks is a simple story of Tim (Paul Rudd) who is hoping to get a promotion at his job but must first impress his boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood) by taking part in a monthly dinner in which each executive brings the biggest idiot they can find and the dumbest one is crowned ‘most exceptional.’ Tim, being a generally decent guy, has misgivings about it but is willing to do whatever he can to succeed. His art promoter girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) thinks the idea is awful and forbids him from doing it. He is in the process of telling his assistant to cancel it when he hits Barry (Steve Carell) with his car while Barry is attempting to rescue a dead mouse from Tim’s approaching Porsche. Feeling that fate has delivered him a gift, Tim invites Barry to the dinner and then his life proceeds to go to hell.

Dinner for Schmucks isn’t new or innovative from a story perspective. There isn’t much fresh about the premise of an otherwise normal guy having his life torn asunder by a well meaning but completely inept and flawed character. What sets Dinner for Schmucks apart is that while this sort of film has been done many times before, it hasn’t been done this well since at least 1991 with What About Bob? Even then while Bob had plenty of laughs it didn’t have a lot of depth. With Dinner for Schmucks you have a couple of different layers working against each other at all times and produces a surprisingly emotionally challenging movie.

Sure, watching the trailers it seems that assessment is difficult to support but the deeper in you get with Barry the more you genuinely feel for him and the things that have happened to him. He is not a secret genius hiding inside an eccentric shell. He is absolutely not bright but there is still talent and sweetness inside him and the lengths he goes to help his friend makes the cruel intentions of said friend and the assembled dinner guests that much more horrible and reprehensible. That being said, the film manages to twist the knife by being so damn funny. I went from chastising myself for ever laughing at this to laughing even harder seconds later and at the end it leaves you a little torn.  It is hard to know who to root for at times and it is a testament to Rudd’s ability as an actor that you never really turn on him even when he is a shit to his well meaning and incompetent friend.

The movie also doesn’t really let Tim off the hook either. He has a choice between being a good person and pursuing his promotion at the expense of others and he chooses the selfish path. The consequence of  that choice is the back fire destruction of his life. So, you know, you feel bad about laughing at the expense of Barry but you are just as often laughing at the expense of Tim. The movie is very even handed that way.

The whole production is a combination of absurdity, word play and slapstick with a liberal dose of that sort of awkward comedy that Carell does so well on the Office. The script and staging are masterfully done and offers back to back laughs from a variety of sources. Director Jay Roach excels at this sort of film given the Fockers series and he is in top form here. Even with his sure hand behind the camera he couldn’t have done it alone. The performances are what really make this thing work.

Pretty much everyone in the movie is firing on all cylinders to make this so funny and so compelling. Rudd is generally in the straight man position here but offers up some excellent physical comedy and funny one liners. As mentioned above, his real achievement is delivering a character that does some awful things but is still generally likable and someone you want to root for even if you aren’t always on his side. Carell could have come in and done a variation on Michael Scott or Maxwell Smart but he gives Barry a unique flavor we have never seen from him. He is not a smart guy and is not at all self aware but he is earnest and sad working through his pain through his mouse taxidermy dioramas. Carell does things here with posture, body language and facial expressions that add layers of nuance to his performance that lesser actors would gloss over with over the top silliness. He makes you care about him and feel sad for him even while you are laughing at him and I think that is kind of incredible.

Beyond the two leads, the supporting cast is awesome. Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement is hilarious as Kieran, the artist Julie is promoting. If he were to get his own Get Him to the Greek style spin off out of this film I would be a happy guy. Zach Galifianakis is equally awesome as Therman, Barry’s boss at the IRS. Galifianakis is getting a lot of work lately off of his success in the Hangover and he proves once again that it is well deserved as he turns in a character who is every bit the idiot that Barry is and that is saying a hell of a lot. The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd also stands out as a blind swordsman who doesn’t have as much screentime as others but uses it as effectively as I have ever seen. Bruce Greenwood, Ron Lvingston, Larry Wilmore, David Walliams and Lucy Punch are also noteworthy but again the whole cast is impressive from start to finish.

Conclusion [9.5 out of 10]

Dinner for Schmucks is a very well made and well performed comedy. There are multiple layers here in what could have been a throwaway picture and it is all the better for it. Certain sensibilities may be turned off by the meanness of it but I think given a chance and viewed beginning to end the movie has a lot to offer and its moral compass is more or less true. It earns its meanness in the pay off and manages to do it without being too schmaltzy or feeling forced. I enjoyed the undercurrent of sadness in Barry and the surprisingly complex emotional texture throughout the film. I also liked that the complexity was buried underneath some enormously silly and funny stuff. If you avoid seeing it because ‘the trailers look stupid’ not only are you missing the point but you are missing out on some of the best comedic performances all year.