Dinner for Schmucks - 7 stars out of 10

Dinner for Schmucks - 7 stars out of 10

Whenever Steve Carell plays the idiot, you have a recipe for hilarity.  Just imagine a movie that creates a half-dozen idiotic characters to compete with him!  The movie seems predictable from the previews but it is not what you expect (in a good and bad way).  The opening credits do a great job of preparing the audience to laugh and putting them into a euphoric mindset.  The dinner scene is the highlight of this movie (as the title suggests) but only lasts for 20 minutes.  While the movie is full of Steve Carell being a bumbling idiot, the first half of this movie is spent developing characters and revealing their motives.  Steve Carell is loveable as he again masters the art of creating havoc and you will split your time between enjoying his comedy and cringing at the awful situations that he creates.  Casting comedian Jeff Dunham as the ventriloquist was genius (why recreate the wheel?) and Zach Galifianakis gives the second-most memorable performance in this film, not only through his ridiculous interactions with Carell but also as a key component to the plot.  "Dinner for Schmucks" never reaches the genius level of Anchorman or The Office but manages to create a ton of laughs while cleanly wrapping up a plot that seems hopeless.