Something about the very premise for Dinner for Schmucks (Paramount, July 23), starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, seems inherently off. Ignoring the quasi-ethnic specificity of the title, and the befuddlement it will create in swathes of the country, have we really arrived at a place where basically the plot for She’s All That can be transported to the corporate world, with yuks expected to ensue? I entirely expect that Rudd’s higher-ups and fellow employees (Bruce Greenwood, Ron Livingston, Larry Wilmore, et al) will ultimately be played for jerks, and the butt of some jokes — that’s the “reversal” that’s ingrained in studio product — but what is at all amusing about the notion of a company where this sort of culture thrives? Ignoring that, is it any way realistic in the current economic climate, even in a bio-domed, alternate-comedic world — that a company’s power brokers have this much time to devote to fiddlesticks fucking around? It feels off in a big way, i.e., out of step with the zeitgeist.
