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Steve Carell channels Jerry Lewis in this very funny comedy of manners. Mean on its face, its also cloyingly sweet on occasion, yet its mostly unerring humor slays all objections. Indeed the LOLs are never more than a few minutes away, especially when the “idiots” get untracked. (Yes, “idiots.” Dinner for Schmucks never uses “schmuck.” Not once, schmuck.)

Movie Review: Dinner for Schmucks.

The movie is executed with such high spirits, and Carell bring such panache to his oddly upbeat character, that it all seems harmless. Maybe that’s because mean comedy has been with us for a long time now, so debasement has lost its revolting sting. In any case, Steve Carell – who entered the priesthood of Debasement Comedy with The 40 Year Old Virgin – enters the pantheon with his performance here.

Paul Rudd, the reluctant bro in this oddball bromance, plays the Dean Martin role to Carell’s Jerry Lewis, his mild unctuousness anchoring their partnership. Fortunately, neither Rudd or Carell comes on nearly as strong as Martin or Lewis, a good thing for those of us who never joined the French in their appreciation of Jerry Lewis’s idiotic comedy.

The manners of contemporary white collar work are the fodder for much of the humor, not only for Rudd’s junior executive character but also for Carell’s IRS functionary. Each of their workplace relationships gets fed into the mill: Rudd’s with his secretary-on-the-make, his asshole superiors, and his spineless peers; Carell’s with his insane boss (played by the brilliantly hilarious Zach Galifianakis), a manager who is way too involved in the deeply personal life of his subordinate.

Interestingly, the movie includes minimal physical and slapstick comedy for such a purely comic creation. Instead many physical laughs are generated by an increasingly hilarious series of stuffed mouse dioramas. Easily as funny as Carell or Galifianakis, these mousey doppelgängers spoof art, literature, relationships and society in general. Brilliant and LOL.

Thus Dinner for Schmucks serves up mostly smart comedy in search of silly laughs. Happily what it searches for, it finds.

Full review at at WikPik.

(Image: WENN)