Movies For Schmucks

Ever since the wonderful BBC2 aired the French flick "Le Diner De Cons" (The Idiot Dinner) one day between 2001 and 2003, can't remember exactly, but it was late at night and me and my brother watched it during our late night foreign film binge, which was just that and the brilliantly nasty Das Experiment, We saw what remains to this day a fast, hysterical and brilliant film which was a character study of an immoral businessman who loses his wife over the idea of making fun on geeks, whilst the titular 'idiot' ends up looking after the man, who does his back in practicing golf swings for his next game with his bosses, and ends up being the really nice and sweet person as to try and help think of how to get his wife back.

It's brilliant and I suggest you pick it up, don't rent, give it your money because if you don't laugh once during it, you have no soul.

And yet when news of the American remake came about, the only worry I had was the title, Dinner For Schmucks, too obvious.
When they had Sacha Baron Cohen in the lead idiot role I was happy, he'd have done it well, I could imagine it, though from fat short man to ridiculously thin and tall would have been weird, it's the perfect remake idea, the complete opposite.
But now we have the final finished production, with Steve "YELLING ALL THE TIME" Carell as the idiot, and Paul "Sarcasm only works when you're the straight man not aiming for the funny all the time" Rudd as the sweet man who is FRCED to get an idiot, not willingly, just for a promotion...
Oh, and as you can see from the trailer, the meeting on the train becomes Paul running over Steve, and they actually end up at the dinner too, instead of it being clearly a theatre production turned into a hysterical film, it's just a mindless, soulless, humourless and offensiveless PG-13 slapstick event.



Sigh, I fucking hate Hollywood.
I believe Richard Kelly wrote it best in Southland Tales. "Just because it's loud doesn't mean it's funny"