"Dinner for Schmucks:
Richard's Review: 3 stars
"Dinner for Schmucks" begins with "Fool on the Hill," the minor chord Beatles classic. It's a melancholy song that perfectly sets up the minor chord laughs to follow.
The movie, a remake of a French farce called "The Dinner Game" is essentially the story of two men, Tim (Paul Rudd) an investment banker desperate to marry the girl of his dreams and get a new office on the coveted seventh floor of his firm's building, and Barry (Steve Carell) the "schmuck" of the title who, unwittingly, both keeps Tim from realizing his dreams and pushes him further along the corporate ladder.
Barry is a full time IRS employee and part time taxidermist with the strange hobby of making historical dioramas with stuffed mice. Their relationship culminates at the titular dinner, an annual event thrown by Tim's boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood) a ruthless businessman who "collects" unusual people.
The deal is simple, his top employees bring the strangest people -- but no mimes please, that's a cliché -- they can find to an elaborate dinner. The winner gets the promotion Tim so dearly wants. Of course by the day of the dinner Tim begins to wonder who the real schmucks are -- Lance Fender's people or their unusual dinner guests.
"Dinner for Schmucks" has quite a few laughs, but few of them are deep belly laughs. It's not exactly a laugh a minute -- more like a giggle every now and again -- which is OK, but it fundamentally fails despite the jokes because Carell's character is so extreme that the movie forces us to do exactly the opposite of what it sets out to do.
Because Barry is such an imbecile we laugh at him instead of with him. Carell has played characters like Barry before and pulled it off. The great trick of both "The Office" and "The 40 Year Old Virgin" was to take an awkward character and make him lovable. Carell is sweet enough to make Barry watchable -- imagine Jim Carrey, too manic, or Mike Myers, too soft around the edges -- but his usual magic is missing here. He wrings laughs out of the one joke idea and makes us giggle, but for the wrong reasons.
Rudd ably plays the Hardy to Carell's Laurel, but he's playing straight man to a movie jammed with schmucky people. For example Jemaine Clement plays another one of his now trademarked self important, non sequitur spewing -- "Never try to mate a lioness and a penguin," he says -- comic characters. It's only a slight variation on his work in "Gentlemen Broncos" and doesn't hold a candle to the laughs he generated on "Flight of the Concords." Ditto Zach Galifianakis as a philandering mind control expert. In a movie filled with kooks like this Rudd is the anchor.
"Dinner for Schmucks" isn't an awful movie. You'll laugh, or at least giggle, but director Jay Roach never pushes the comedy to the next level. The movie never really takes flight, even in the wild dinner scene climax that despite all the usual farce tropes -- like fire and unexpected injury -- it never feels out of control enough. Tone-wise, schmucks is way too sensible.
"Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
There was a time when a spy movie starring Roger Moore was cause for excitement. It was a guarantee of cool gadgets, some intrigue and at least one character with a name like Kitty Galore. His new film has all those things, except instead of a Stun Gas Cigarette or a storyline about a villain trying to destabilize Western Europe or a character with a vaguely sexual name we get a kid friendly romp with, as the tagline says, "real spies… only furrier."
The story involves Kitty Galore (voice of Bette Midler), once a cat spy for M.E.O.W.S. now a villain with a plan to broadcast a sound via every cell phone, TV and radio on earth that will drive all the dogs in the world mad. Her "Call of the Wild" will "make the world her scratching post." Between her and victory, however, is a group of dogs, cats and even birds working together to fight against their enemies -- both foreign and domesticated. They vow to stop the spread of radical felineism.
Along with the appeal of the voice cast, which includes Nick Nolte, Neil Patrick Harris, Christina Applegate and the former Bond, Roger Moore, whose character's name, Tab Lazenby, is a cheeky reminder of another former Bond portrayer, the big thing "Cats & Dogs" has going for it is cute appeal. Cute, that is if you find a cat wearing a bunny suit adorable. Or if sad puppy dog eyes are your thing. If not, maybe you should go see "Inception" again, but animal lovers, especially young ones, will find much to enjoy here.
The movie is a pleasant, if forgettable, mix of mild action for the kiddies: talking, performing animals -- it really is amazing what a good trainer can do with a bottle of liquid meat, (yes, there is such a thing) -- and some pop culture references for the adults. The "Silence of the Lambs" gags feel a bit tired, like something from a Jay Leno monologue, but there are some good puns and the odd quote-worthy joke.
The downside, and it is an occasionally very steep downside, is the inclusion of several human characters.
My first nominee for a trip to the kennel is Jack McBrayer who plays an inept magician named Chuck. McBrayer is very funny on "30 Rock" as Kenneth the NBC page but with every film role he takes on is revealing his lack of range. Here he is only half a degree away from Kenneth, but without the charm he brings to his television work.
Next up for a visit from the dog catcher is Fred Armisen. He's not terrible in the movie, but he's not really good either. He just is. And that's disappointing from a performer who has created so many memorable characters on "Saturday Night Live."
"Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" is a rare breed, an action movie for tots that tosses a bone or two to the grown-ups as well.
"Harry Brown" DVD
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars
Harry Brown is a common name, like John Smith or Greg Jones. It's the kind of name that doesn't draw attention to itself, but in the hands of Michael Caine, who plays the lead character in the revenge thriller "Harry Brown," the name, the character and the movie become memorable.
"Harry Brown" is a gritty "Gran Torino" with British accents and a dash of "Death Wish." Caine plays Brown as High Noon's Gary Cooper, but instead of being set on the wide open plain, the action in this Teabag Western takes place in the urban terrain of the Elephant and Castle section of London.
Caine plays a widowed man who strikes back after a gang of feral yobs kill his best mate and confidant Len (David Bradley). D.I. Alice Frampton, (Emily Mortimer), a persistent but ineffectual detective with the thankless job of policing the council estate, suspects Harry is a part time vigilante but can't prove it, and even if she could her partner is ambivalent to the pensioner's gun slinging ways. "As far as I'm concerned, Harry Brown is doing us a favor," says D.S. Terry Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles).
"Harry Brown" is a lurid picture of a crime ridden society. Its bleak worldview effectively illustrates the flip side of the Swingin' London Caine came to personify in the 1960s. It's a dark and menacing world where Len admits, "I'm scared all the time, Harry." But all the atmosphere in the world wouldn't be worth a hill of bangers and mash if you didn't believe that an 80-year-old man with an inhaler could effectively turn vigilante, take the law into his own hands and go all Dirty Harry on kids a fraction his age.
In a film ripe with nice performances -- Mortimer is marvelous and Jack O'Connell is frightening as a young thug -- Michael Caine shines, giving us a well rounded portrait of a man who is a trained killer -- he was a marine -- with a "certain set of skills" and as a defeated old man who has seen too much death and strife in his life.
He's at his best when he plays the extremes -- the heartbroken pensioner on one hand; the lethal killer who tosses off Tarantino-esque one liners like, "You failed to maintain your weapon, Son," to a drug dealer whose gun jammed at the wrong moment, on the other -- and it is his performance that humanizes the film's often passionate pontificating on "Broken Britain."
