Tim (Paul Rudd) is at the point in his career where he's clawing for every opportunity to advance from his sixth floor dungeon to the shangri-la that is the seventh floor. He wants that recently vacated office on the corner. He wants to be able to afford his Porsche. He's kissed ass and stumbled his way to the door leading to the promised land and has only one more obstacle before him: a dinner. That's it, a simple dinner. Bring a guest, too. Make sure they're "exceptional"... so that the boys club can get a good laugh at them.
The thing about Tim is that he's in love with Julie (Stephanie Szostak). He wants to get married, she's not ready. So it goes. It's Julie that initially thinks the idea is sick, twisted, and down right nasty. Tim agrees, but you have to wonder if it's because he doesn't know anyone "exceptional" more than the creepiness of it all. Enter Barry (Steve Carell). Tim literally runs into him one day and as they converse Tim realizes that Barry is very "exceptional" in that he stages life scenes with dead mice. Jackpot. The problem is that Barry is so exceptional he begins to ruin Tim's life in one night. Barry is literally a Pandora's Box for Tim.
When you go into Dinner for Schmucks realize that this isn't Clue and the entire film isn't the dinner party. It's more of a lead up to the dinner with Tim being driven quietly toward madness by Barry's "exceptionalbility". Sadly, the ride to the dinner is more entertaining than the dinner itself. You expect a pay off in the end, but it just stalls out. Just think of the last twenty minutes as an epilogue to the rest of the movie.
The plot is the same formula that you've seen many times removed. Basically it's an age old story that gets retold every few years as hot Hollywood stars climb up the ladder and push old ones off. Think of this as a changing of the guard film. It's still funny and has it moments, but other parts of the film try way to hard and it shows. This dinner is reasonably good, but isn't quite as filling as it could have been otherwise. This is a middle of the road summer comedy.
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