Considering it reunites half of our beloved Channel 4 news team, you’d think we’d be more excited about “Dinner For Schmucks,”a remake of French comedy “Le diner de cons,” starring Paul Rudd as a man drawn into a secret society that invites the titular schmucks to dinner and then mocks them, and Steve Carell as the idiot taxidermist he befriends. But we haven’t been overly impressed by what we’ve seen so far.
When the first trailer broke a couple of months back, it contained a couple of decent laughs, but we were concerned at its focus on the relationship between Rudd and Carell’s character, which we felt might lead the film down predictable avenues. A new trailer hit Apple yesterday, and, strangely it feels more like a teaser than the first trailer. But, aside from the irritating fake-out at the beginning so beloved of marketing companies (in this case, trailer-voice-over-man setting it up to be an X-Men style picture), it’s a little more promising.
This spot focuses much more on the comic insanity of the film and on the outstanding supporting cast featuring Zach Galifianakis, Ron Livingston, Jason Sudeikis, Bruce Greenwood, rising British talents David Walliams (“Little Britain”), Lucy Punch and Chris O’Dowd (the upcoming “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Bridesmaids”), “The Daily Show”‘s Larry Wilmore and “Flight of the Conchords”‘s Jemaine Clement, who landed the villain role in “Men in Black 3” off the back of his allegedly scene-stealing performance.
Strangely enough, we’re not completely sold because of the leads; Carell looks to be at his unrestrained, shouty worst, and Rudd seems to have Xeroxed his “I Love You Man” straight man performance — while he’s the master of the perfectly timed reaction shot, we were hoping for something a little more interesting. But if the finished film can deliver on some of the comic anarchy promised here, then there may be enough here to justify at least a cheap matinee ticket on a hot day.