The Movie
The name of the movie is Dinner for Schmucks, and I saw a few commercials for it so I was expecting it to be about a dinner party for losers put on by the mean-spirited staff of a successful company. And it is about that I suppose, but I wish someone told me that the Dinner didn't start for an hour and 20 minutes, because I was impatiently starving for some good comedy, and when the entrée finally arrived, it wasn't very satisfying.
Steve Carell stars as Barry, a clueless dweeb who recreates works of art using taxidermied mice. He's befriended--kind of--by financial analyst Tim (Paul Rudd) eager for a promotion, and bringing the most outrageous schmuck to his boss' monthly fete is the ticket. Getting there should be more than half the fun, but so much of the movie just ambles along through barely-relevant subplots without any real tension, just a bevy of modern comedy clichés. The boss and his sycophants are just so smug! And Tim has a change of heart and repents taking part in the dinner: Didn't see that coming!
Don't be a schmuck: Read Joe Lozito's review of Dinner for Schmucks!
The Picture
Like the movie, the 1.78:1 HD video presentation is no laughing matter. It boasts excellent shadow detail and a clean, stable, lifelike image throughout. That mostly means that the close-ups reveal a lot of pores and the weave of the costumes is evident, but there are also some unexpected treats, like a W-4 form hanging on the wall of the IRS office that we can plainly make out.
The Sound
As needed (which is not very often), there is a pleasing depth and spaciousness to the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, like when we attend a bustling art gallery opening. Later, a crazed ex-girlfriend goes ballistic on Tim's Porsche while he's inside (why he doesn't just drive away no one explains), and there are lots of good little touches and off-camera voices, but in general this is a fairly standard movie track.
The Extras
The extras are all in HD, some exclusive to Blu-ray. In addition to six deleted scenes (nine minutes total) and eight minutes of bloopers, there are three featurettes: "The Biggest Schmucks in the World" is a 15-minute "making of;" "The Men Behind the Mouseterpieces" (twelve minutes) profiles The Chiodo Brothers, the artists who created Barry's mouse dioramas; and "Meet the Winners" takes us up close to the supporting dinner guests, in-character, for about four minutes. Lastly is "Paul and Steve: The Decision," from ESPN, parodying LeBron James' press conference from this past summer.
Final Thoughts
There's no shortage of wacky characters on parade in Dinner for Schmucks. Too bad no one told this gang that "wacky" doesn't always equal "funny," and I for one was left hungry for laughs. The video transfer is tasty, but neither the audio nor extras are all that appetizing. Check, please!
Product Details
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