Movie Review: Bombshell

Bombshell

Directed by: Jay Roach.

Written by: Charles Randolph.

Starring: Charlize Theron (Megyn Kelly), Nicole Kidman (Gretchen Carlson), Margot Robbie (Kayla Pospisil), John Lithgow (Roger Ailes), Allison Janney (Susan Estrich), Malcolm McDowell (Rupert Murdoch), Kate McKinnon (Jess Carr), Connie Britton (Beth Ailes), Liv Hewson (Lily), Brigette Lundy-Paine (Julia Clarke), Rob Delaney (Gil Norman), Mark Duplass (Doug Brunt), Stephen Root (Neil Mullen), Robin Weigert (Nancy Smith), Amy Landecker (Dianne Brandi), Mark Moses (Bill Shine), Nazanin Boniadi (Rudi Bakhtiar), Ben Lawson (Lachlan Murdoch), Josh Lawson (James Murdoch), Alanna Ubach (Judge Jeanine Pirro), Andy Buckley (Gerson Zweifach), Brooke Smith (Irena Briganti), Bree Condon (Kimberly Guilfoyle), D’Arcy Carden (Rebekah), Kevin Dorff (Bill O’Reilly), Richard Kind (Rudy Giuliani), Michael Buie (Bret Baier), Marc Evan Jackson (Chris Wallace), Anna Ramsay (Greta Van Susteren), Jennifer Morrison (Juliet Huddy), Ashley Greene (Abby Huntsman), Ahna O’Reilly (Julie Roginsky), Lisa Canning (Harris Faulkner), Elisbeth Rohm (Martha MacCallum), Alice Eve (Ainsley Earhardt).

 

Hollywood is still not quite ready to grapple with the #MeToo movement on screen – so it makes sense that so far we’ve gotten two depictions of Roger Ailes’ downfall this year, and we haven’t seen a Harvey Weinstein film yet. First there was the TV show The Loudest Voice, where Russell Crowe’s Ailes was the main character, and had a wide ranging outlook – from him building Fox News, to his downfall. And now there is Bombshell, in which John Lithgow’s Ailes takes a backseat to three female characters – Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as Kayla – a fictionalized amalgamation of many of the Fox staffers who suffered Ailes’ harassment over the years. The Fox News story is easier to deal with than #MeToo, because it predates it by a year or so, and because it gives liberal Hollywood a chance to poke at one of their most hated targets anyway. Bombshell is a tricky movie – it tries to walk the line between fun and weighty, and it doesn’t always get the balancing act right. Theron and Robbie – and to a lesser extent Kidman – essentially save the movie, while at the same time you realize the film doesn’t quite know how to handle them completely. They did, of course, bring down Ailes. They also contributed to the culture of Fox News, which led to Trump and a host of other sins – but the film just kind of nods that direction, before basically ignoring it.

 

The film was directed by Jay Roach – who is of course known for his comedies like the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents movies, but has also been doing some fine political movies for HBO in the past decade like Recount, about the 2000 Presidential election and the legal battle that ensued after, Game Change, about Sarah Palin’s rise to prominence in 2008 and All the Way, about Lyndon Johnson passing the Civil Rights Act. It was written by Charles Randolph – one half of the team who wrote The Big Short. One of the weaker aspects of the film is when the film tries to do Big Short type stuff – with Theron’s character addressing the camera and audience directly at times – a gimmick that it appears Roach realized didn’t work, and only does a couple of times near the beginning, and then abandons.

 

It’s at its best depicting the women. A lot has already been written about Theron’s physical transformation into Megyn Kelly – and while I’m not going to say one of the most famous actresses in the world in unrecognizable, the makeup work really does a great job at transforming her so that you immediately know who you are supposed to be watching. Theron also completely nails Kelly’s voice and intonation – and also really gets under Kelly’s tough exterior – showing us the principled woman – the only one at Fox who was willing to stand up to Trump, the only one still with a job and power who willing went against Ailes as well. The film would have been stronger had it dealt with some of the contradictions in Kelly a little bit more though – we get the “Santa is white kids” moment only in passing, we get only a brief conversation about how she lets Trump off the hook in an interview. There are contradictions and compromises Kelly made along the way – the type that doomed her when she left Fox – and the film doesn’t seem to really want to address them head-on. It would have been stronger had it done so. Still, it’s another great performance by Theron – who does carry the movie.

 

The three major supporting roles work as well. Kidman doesn’t quite have the role Theron does – but does what she can with Gretchen Carlson – who cheerfully went along with the sexism and misogyny on-air, while trying to do something about it off air. Once she leaves Fox though – and files the lawsuit that kicks everything off – she’s pretty much sidelined, with only some scenes where she wonders if anyone will support her. John Lithgow is wonderful as Ailes – even if it’s a one note role – and it also requires a physical transformation of him. Lithgow seemingly loves to be the slimy, manipulative Ailes – and he’s great at showing just what he does to get women to do what he wants, and the petty, childlike whining when he’s called on it. Robbie has a difficult role as Kayla – she has no real life person to draw from, and at first you wonder if she’s just going to be playing generic Fox blonde. But she shines in the film’s most uncomfortable sequences – the extended one-on-ones with Ailes where she grows increasingly uncomfortable, but keeps going anyway. And she’s wonderful when dealing with the fallout from that – and the effect it has on this formerly enthusiastic, smiling, ambitious young woman. The talented supporting cast also fills in their roles nicely – from those playing famous Fox personalities, to those playing generic staffers.

 

The tone of the film is all over the place, and I’m quite sure Roach ever really nails the tricky balancing act that he’s going for here. On one hand, he does want to make this an entertaining, Big Short style expose on Fox News – on the other, he knows how serious the subject matter is. Individual scenes all work fine – but the transitions can be whiplash inducing at times.

 

Still the film works mostly because the performances anchor it – even when the film itself doesn’t feel confident in what it’s doing, the performances do. Hollywood is still grappling with #MeToo – still figuring out how to tell these stories. Going after Fox News gives them a comfortable distance at which to do so. Sooner or later though, that comfortable distance will need to go away.

Movie Review: All the Way

All the Way

Directed by: Jay Roach.

Written by: Robert Schenkkan based on his play.

Starring: Bryan Cranston (Lyndon B. Johnson), Anthony Mackie (Martin Luther King, Jr.), Bradley Whitford (Hubert Humphrey), Melissa Leo (Lady Bird Johnson), Stephen Root (J. Edgar Hoover), Ray Wise (Everett Dirksen), Frank Langella (Sen. Richard Russell), Ethan Phillips (Joe Alsop), Joe Morton (Roy Wilkins), Toby Huss (Governor Johnson), Ken Jenkins (Rep. 'Judge' Smith), Aisha Hinds (Fannie Lou Hamer), Spencer Garrett (Walter Reuther).

Watching the excellent HBO movie All the Way, I couldn’t help think of another recent biopic about a US President – Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Both films decide to take a look at only one time in their subjects lives – no well-meaning, but dull scenes of their childhood, no rise from obscurity, etc. – but rather look at the way both men navigated a very tricky moment in their Presidency – and in America history – for the betterment of the country as a whole. Lincoln looked at the President as he – and others – teamed up to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery. All the Way takes place almost 100 years later, as it begins in the moments after Johnson is sworn in as President, following the assassination of JFK, and ends a year later with Johnson winning the 1964 Presidential election. In the year in between, Johnson, like Lincoln before him, will do anything to get the Civil Rights Bill, passed through the House and the Senate. All the Way isn’t as good as Lincoln was – few political biopics are (few have a director as great as Spielberg, a screenwriter as good as Tony Kushner, an actor as good as Daniel Day-Lewis, or a subject as good as Abraham Lincoln, so perhaps it’s not fair to compare) – but it is another in a long line of great, political movies made by HBO. Two of those were directed by Jay Roach, the same man who directed all the way (Game Change about the 2008 election and Recount about the 2000 election – expect one about the 2016 in 2019 or so). It benefits greatly by being based on a well-reviewed play, adapted by the playwright, Robert Schenkkan, himself – and starring the great Bryan Cranston, who won a Tony for the role on Broadway. Cranston would not have been the first actor I thought of to play LBJ – but it turns out to be the right one. Yes, he is slathered in makeup to make him look like the former President, and he has to adopt the exaggerated Texas drawl Johnson had (that would have been easy to overdo) – but he really does get to the heart of Johnson as the President and a person – both the good and the bad.

The movie depicts the difficult balancing act that Johnson was faced with when he took over the Presidency. Kennedy was a beloved figure in the country – but Johnson and Kennedy were very different men and politicians – Kennedy needed Johnson to help deliver the South, which he did, and Johnson needed Kennedy if he was going to be Vice President. With Kennedy gone, Johnson inherits a legislature agenda that includes The Civil Rights bill. Fellow Southern Democrats – which seems impossible today, but was the opposite at that time, think they know Johnson – that he’ll either kill or gut the bill. These are the so-called Dixiecrats – led by Senator Richard Russell (Frank Langella) – a personal friend of Johnson’s. The South always votes Democrat, and the South does not want this bill. Johnson will cave, right? But Johnson has pressure from the Liberal arm of the wing (Johnson sneers the word Liberal like he’s Fox News “analyst” in the film) – who desperately want it. And Martin Luther King (Anthony Mackie) is tired of waiting. King is pragmatic – much like Johnson is – and willing to compromise, but only so far. Like Johnson, King has different elements of his movement to try and appease.

It struck me while watching the film that this is the film all those people who had a hissy fit about Ava DuVernay’s great Selma, wanted that film to be. The problem they had with that film, is that they thought it downplayed Johnson’s contribution. I actually think the two films would make a very interesting double bill (and not just because one of the last things that happens in All the Way is King mentioning they’re on their way to Alabama – the start of Selma) – but because it shows the complicated relationship the two men had. They both needed each other, they both used each other – but I’m not sure they really liked each other. The portrait of LBJ in All the Way is obviously more sympathetic – the way he shoots down J. Edgar Hoover and his use of secret recordings of King (that Selma will imply Johnson used) for example. But I think the two films, together, show how two people can go through the same events, and have different interpretations of them. Selma is the better film – clearly – but All the Way adds some interesting stuff to the mix.

Clearly the main reason to see the film though is for Cranston. His performance as Johnson is, for the most part, very admiring of the President. Cranston clearly takes delight in Johnson’s colorful language, which he delivers with pure glee. The film does show some of the darker sides of Johnson – the way he snaps at underlings – and his own wife (Melissa Leo, fine in a role not worthy of her talent). The film stops short of showing Johnson as a racist himself – he never says the word nigger (I think, the heavily accented way he has negro isn’t always clear) – but he is clearly homophobic, in a weird subplot that doesn’t seem fully fleshed out (its here, one suspects, for 2016 reasons). But his performance is deeper than all the mannerisms and makeup – if it wasn’t, than it would be another entertaining caricature – like Liev Schreiber playing Johnson in Lee Daniels’ The Butler – but it’s not. It isn’t as good as another HBO LBJ – Michael Gambon’s inn John Frankenheimer’s under seen Path to War – but it’s a great performance just the same.

It saddens me a little bit that the film ended up going to HBO. In years past, an adaptation of a Tony winning play, with an Oscar nominated star, and an excellent supporting cast, about a President may well have been a studio movie – timed to win Oscars. The world we live in now, thought, means the film goes to HBO. But the good news is that HBO does this kind of thing just right – and All the Way hits the sweet spot. For political biopic junkies (and, I admit, I am one) this is about as good as you could ask for.

Movie Review: Trumbo

Trumbo
Directed by: Jay Roach.   
Written by: John McNamara based on the book by Bruce Cook.
Starring: Bryan Cranston (Dalton Trumbo), Diane Lane (Cleo Trumbo), Louis C.K. (Arlen Hird), Michael Stuhlbarg (Edward G. Robinson), Helen Mirren (Hedda Hopper), David James Elliott (John Wayne),  James DuMont (J. Parnell Thomas), Alan Tudyk (Ian McLellan Hunter), Dan Bakkedahl (Roy Brewer), Richard Portnow (Louis B. Mayer), Roger Bart (Buddy Ross), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Virgil Brooks), Elle Fanning (Niki Trumbo), John Goodman (Frank King), Stephen Root (Hymie King), Dean O'Gorman (Kirk Douglas),  Christian Berkel (Otto Preminger). 

Hollywood loves to mythologize itself – which is why it’s odd that they have yet to make a truly great film about the Hollywood Blacklist. Martin Ritt’s The Front (1977) probably comes closest, and Irwin Winkler’s Guilty by Suspicion (1991) is pretty good. George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck is about McCarthyism to be sure, but not really about Hollywood in particular. Jay Roach’s Trumbo is the latest film on the subject that seems to barely scratch the surface of one of the darkest chapters in Hollywood history. It should be better than it is – it’s got an excellent ensemble cast, a screenplay full of snappy dialogue, and workmanlike, but effective, direction by Roach. But the film falls into the trap that many films on the subject does – and make a complicated situation look simplistic, and ends up painting complex, real people as caricatures. The result is often entertaining, but ultimately fails to live up to how good it should have been.

The film stars the great Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo – famed screenwriter, who was once the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, not to mention a National Book Award Winner for his novel Johnny Got His Gun. But in the late 1940s and early 1950s, America was gripped with Red Panic – and Congress started to hold hearings to flush out Commies in all walks of life – especially in Hollywood. Trumbo was, it should be said, a one time member of the Communist Party – and was a long-time advocate for workers’ rights. So Congress wasn’t wrong to accuse him – and others in the so called Hollywood Ten – of being Communists. Of course, that shouldn’t matter – in America you have the right to believe whatever the hell you want. But that didn’t matter at the time – and Trumbo found himself blacklisted, unable to work – and spending a year in jail for Contempt of Congress. He never stopped working though – he just couldn’t put his name on any of his screenplays, and made a living for years churning out cheap screenplays under false names. During that time, his work won two Oscars – but he couldn’t claim either.

Through his stint on Breaking Bad, Cranston proved himself a master of nuance – but that’s not something that is required of him in Trumbo. Cranston effects a strange speaking style, and seems to be hiding behind his posture, mustache and cigarette holder throughout the film. That’s not to say he’s bad in the movie – he’s actually quite good, and always entertaining. But Trumbo was a more complicated person than he is portrayed as here – and the movie never asks him to be complicated. That’s extends to everyone else in the film as well. Yes, it’s fun to see John Goodman and Stephan Root as the King Brothers – makers of schlock, or Helen Mirren as her hats as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper or Christian Berkel as Otto Preminger (an opportunity is lost that the film doesn’t show us Stanley Kubrick at all – it mentions him once, but it essentially gives all credit to Spartacus to Kirk Douglas). The best performance in the film is probably by Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson – an initially jovial figure, who becomes quietly sad and tragic throughout the film.

Yet, it’s also undeniable that the film doesn’t look for nuance in any of its characters. The anti-communist forces in Congress are painted as one big, faceless, interchangeable mob. While Mirren is fun as Hopper, the film doesn’t really give her much to do (its more than they give two other talented actress – Diane Lane and Elle Fanning as Trumbo’s wife and daughter, but not much). For a film that is about the Blacklist – where Congress and their lapdogs painted everyone they didn’t like with the same brush, and didn’t worry about context, or even truth, Trumbo is odd in that it perhaps overcorrects things – doing the same thing in reverse.

To be fair, Trumbo is quite a bit of fun at times, and is never boring. Roach, who is best known for his big screen comedies, has been trying to move into more serious work – doing some fine films (like Game Change) for HBO. Trumbo in many ways feels like a TV movie – and not one of the best ones, but rather just a decent, workmanlike one. It’s a fun movie that would give those who know nothing about the blacklist a decent primer. But we’ll have to wait a little longer to have a great Blacklist movie – and Trumbo feels like a missed opportunity to be that film.

Movie Review: The Campaign

The Campaign
Directed by: Jay Roach.
Written by: Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy.
Starring: Will Ferrell (Cam Brady), Zach Galifianakis (Marty Huggins), Jason Sudeikis (Mitch), Dylan McDermott (Tim Wattley), Katherine LaNasa (Rose Brady), Sarah Baker (Mitzi Huggins), John Lithgow (Glenn Motch), Dan Aykroyd (Wade Motch), Brian Cox (Raymond Huggins), Karen Maruyama (Mrs. Yao).

I don’t know if the fact that The Campaign is as silly and over the top of a comedy that Will Ferrell has ever made, and is still not that far from the reality of today’s politics in America is a good thing or a bad thing, True, the idea that all the things that happens in this movie would happen in a single Congressional campaign is hard to believe, but if you isolate the individual events, none of them are that far from things that have actually happened. America is a country where people will do anything to win in politics, and do so for no other reason than to simply win. This is a movie about politicians, and yet not a single issue is given any serious time in the movie – that’s because the issues no longer matter. What matters now is money and winning.

Ferrell plays Cam Brady, a 4 term Democratic Congressman from North Carolina. He has his district so sewn up, he runs unopposed every election year. He was once said to be a Vice Presidential candidate, and his wife wants him to be that one day. Not President, where he’d have to do things, but Vice President where he has to do nothing. Brady keeps running every time essentially because he likes being a Congressman. It’s easy, and people like him. His speeches are about nothing – he just hits on buzzwords “America, Jesus, Freedom” and tailors his speeches to whoever he is talking to (apparently every individual group is the backbone on America). The job also comes with perks – like beautiful, blond women who are attracted to him. It’s one of those women who gets Cam into trouble in the first place. And gets the Motch brothers thinking that maybe it’s time to replace Cam in Congress. And they have the money to make that happen.

The person they select is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), who is running as Republican, and is the son of a powerful man, which of course means he must be smart enough to be a politician. He speaks in an effeminate voice, has a pleasant wife, and two sons, as well as two pugs – which Cam immediately accuses of being Chinese dogs, and hence Communists. He loves him hometown, and is looking forward for his chance to serve it as a Congressman. Does he have any ideas of his own? Not by the evidence presented in this film. He has no chance of winning the election – at least not until the Motch brothers send political adviser Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) to help him. He then transforms himself into a platitude speaking, mudslinging politician just like Cam Brady. If Brady keeps hitting on the theme of America, Jesus and Freedom, than Marty keeps talking about bringing his broom to Washington because ”It’s a mess”. You can say this no matter if you a Democrat or a Republican – just as long as you are not the incumbent.

The Campaign begins with what would consider a dirty campaign between these two candidates, and simply gets worse and worse as the movie goes along. Yes, the movie does identify the characters as a Democrat and a Republican, but this is mainly a non-partisan movie. It sees both characters as morally bankrupt and beholden to their wealthy backers. The movie does tap into the anger that many people have towards politicians in America right now – hence why Congress keeps setting records for the lowest approval rating in history. The only issue that the movie takes on at all is campaign finance reform, and in particular the controversial Supreme Court Case Citizens United – which has been criticized by some politicians on each side of the aisle. But most people in politics like the new rule – it allows them to raise as much money as possible.

If I’ve made The Campaign sound more serious than it really it, that wasn’t on purpose. If you’re a fan of Ferrell or Galifianakis, and their over the top comic styling’s, you’ll enjoy The Campaign even if you have no interest at all in politics. The two act like idiots – which they are better at than most actors in Hollywood, and they are both hilarious throughout the movie. And yet, there is a kernel of truth underneath all the over the top comedy in The Campaign that makes it slightly more interesting than most comedies of its ilk. I do wish the movie had a more cynical ending than this one does. There is an underlying idealism at the heart of The Campaign that argues that most politicians know the difference between right and wrong, and got into politics for the right reasons and have simply lost their way. I`m not sure if that`s true, and I certainly do not buy in the case of either of these idiots. Yes, someone wins and someone loses the election, but when people are stuck picking between these two idiots, everyone loses. And you should be angry about that – because it’s not that far from the truth.

TV Movie Review: Game Change

Game Change *** ½

Directed by: Jay Roach.

Written by: Danny Strong based on the book by Mark Halperin & John Heilemann.

Starring: Julianne Moore (Sarah Palin), Woody Harrelson (Steve Schmidt), Ed Harris (John McCain), Peter MacNicol (Rick Davis), Jamey Sheridan (Mark Salter), Sarah Paulson (Nicolle Wallace), Ron Livingston (Mark Wallace), David Barry Gray (Todd Palin), Larry Sullivan (Chris Edwards), Mikal Evans (Bexie Nobles), Colby French (Tucker Eskew), Bruce Altman (Fred Davis), Spencer Garrett (Steve Biegun), Brian Howe (Randy Scheunemann), John Rothman (A.B. Culvahouse), Austin Pendleton (Senator Joe Lieberman).

No one is neutral when it comes to Sarah Palin. You either admire her as a straight-talking, down to earth hockey mom and political maverick, or think she’s a dangerously ignorant woman who has no idea what she’s talking about. The best thing about Game Change, which may well turn out to be the best made for TV movie of the year, is that (despite what Fox News says) it is neither a hit piece, trying to make you hate Palin, nor is it a love letter to the woman. You will almost certainly leave Game Change feeling the same way about Palin as you did when the movie started – love her or hate her – but if you watch the movie with an open mind, you may just feel a little bit of sympathy for her.

The movie opens with the McCain campaign in trouble. Barack Obama has become more than a political candidate – but a genuine celebrity. People absolutely love him, and don’t really care about his lack of experience. McCain (Ed Harris), a professional politician for decades, cannot understand how he is losing by so much to Obama. His campaign manager, Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) thinks they need a game change – something to counteract Obama’s momentum. McCain wanted to have Joe Lieberman – a former Democrat, now an Independent, as his running mate but he won’t do them any good in trying to beat Obama. Neither with Tim Pawlenty or Chris Christie or any of the other Republicans who everyone thinks he should choose from. They want something BIG – and Schmidt seems to thinks he has found it in the newly elected Governor of Alaska – Sarah Palin. The Republican base will love her – which McCain needs to keep them happy – but she is also pretty, charming and funny – not to mention a woman, which may help to win over some female voters, already mad that Hilary Clinton lost to Obama in the Democratic primaries. So, they decide on Palin, but she needs to be vetted – a process that normally takes months, but they only have 5 days. They think all that doesn’t matter, and go ahead with her. But Palin is more than they bargained for – she has no idea about foreign policy, and dangerously little knowledge of domestic policy. Yet, she is confident beyond what knowledge base she does have – she insists on doing things her own way. Not only that, but she will not listen to any of her handlers – she sometimes goes nearly catatonic and shuts out everything around her. She’s a maverick all right.

Most of the major facts in the movie are not really in conflict – Palin really did cite seeing Russia from Alaska as part of her Foreign Policy experience, the infamous Katie Couric interview was not an example of “Gotcha” journalism, but a fair interview that exposed Palin’s lack of knowledge. It also shows just how charming Palin can be – how good she is at speaking, even if she has no idea what she’s talking about, she’s charming when doing it.

Julianne Moore delivers an amazing performance as Palin – she goes deeper than Tina Fey’s spot on impression on SNL that year, to show a woman who is confident she can do anything, who gets in way over her head, and for a while cannot handle it. You feel sympathy for her when she is simply a woman in over her head, struggling to stay afloat. When people take shots at her daughter Bristol – who whatever you think about her, was a pregnant teenager, which would be hard enough without a National spotlight on her – or on her disabled son Trig was inexcusable. But as she struggles to stay afloat, and she because more and more famous, and gets more and more adoring fans, who do not care about her shortcomings, she becomes something of a political monster – she begins to think that she is the real star of the campaign – because in essence, she is – and starts to think she can call all the shots. No one, not Schmidt, not even McCain, can control her.

Woody Harrelson deserves a great deal of credit for his performance as well – he is a smart political mind, who wanted a game change, and got it, but had no idea of the can of worms he was going to open. Ed Harris makes McCain into a very sympathetic man – a man of principle, who loses them in his quest to become President, and doesn’t see that until it’s too late. Late in the campaign, he laments that this was not the campaign he wanted to run – the attacks on Barack Obama, that had become racially motivated and hate filled, shocked him. The other key performance is by Sarah Paulson, as the McCain staffer assigned to be Palin’s handler, who cannot believe what she has to work with.

Directed by Jay Roach, who started making comedies like Austin Powers and Meet the Parents, but has recently moved to HBO to make political films like this, and Recount, from a few years ago. This is an intelligent, well-acted, well written and well directed film. In years past, this could have easily been a theatrical movie, but now, sadly, we know very few people would go see it. So HBO fills the void, and has made a wonderful political drama. I’m sad that this movie had to be made for HBO – but I am happy that it got made it all. For political junkies, Game Change is a must see.

Movie Review: Dinner for Schmucks

Dinner for Schmucks **
Directed By: Jay Roach.
Written By: David Guion & Michael Handelman based on the screenplay by Francis Veber.
Starring: Steve Carell (Barry), Paul Rudd (Tim), Zach Galifianakis (Therman), Jemaine Clement (Kieran), Stephanie Szostak (Julie), Lucy Punch (Darla), Bruce Greenwood (Lance Fender), David Walliams (Müeller), Ron Livingston (Caldwell), Larry Wilmore (Williams).

Dinner for Schmucks is an oddly disjointed movie. I cannot deny that I laughed quite a bit during the movie, because I did, but the film never really builds any comic momentum. There are isolated lines that are hilarious, but from one scene to the next, the movie fails to keep things moving along. I laughed a lot, but I also sat there stone faced quite a bit of the time, and I kept wondering why the movie didn’t quite feel like it gelled together.

The premise of the movie is simple, and should have worked wonderfully. Tim (Paul Rudd) works for a big financial firm, and wants to get a promotion. He has finally caught the eye of the head of the company, Fender (Bruce Greenwood), and he seems to be in line for it. But to get the job, he has to do something he is uncomfortable with. Every month, Fender holds a dinner for all his top people – and each one is expected to invite and idiot to it so that they can all feel superior. He doesn’t really want to do this, and when he tells his fiancée Julie (Stephanie Szostak) she cannot believe he is even considering it – causing them to argue. But then someone falls into his lap that couldn’t be more perfect. This is Barry (Steve Carell), who works for the IRS, but whose real passion is finding dead mice and posing them in elaborate tableaus. Barry is completely clueless to any and all social normality’s, and Tim ends up inviting him. But when Barry shows up a day early, all hell breaks loose, and he just makes things more difficult between Tim and Julie. Eventually, of course, they will get to the dinner but before then there are many side trips – most involving either Therman (Zach Galifianakis), Barry’s nemesis at the IRS, or Kieran (Jemaine Clement), an artist who works with Julie, and who’s raw, animal magnetism worries him.

There are moments and one liners in this film as funny as anything I have seen this year. Particularly brilliant is Clement, who continues to prove (as he does on Flight of the Concords and in the horrible Gentleman Broncos, where he was utterly brilliant despite the crap movie surrounding him) that he is one of the best comedic actors out there right now. Rudd is fine as Tim – much as he always is the straight man in his films, he fills that role better than just about anyone else out there right now. And Carell has his moments as well. Week in, week out he plays the utterly clueless Michael Scott so brilliantly on The Office, that Barry must have seemed like an easy role for him – he just has to ratchet up that cluelessness a little bit more to get Barry. Yet, Carell makes you like Barry. For all his cluelessness, he seems perfectly at ease with himself, and is rather happy. No, I wouldn’t spend my spare time making dead mice into Jesus, George Washington or other people, but if it brings him joy, who I am to tell him otherwise? This is the slowly dawning realization that Tim has as well – Barry is just Barry, and he doesn’t need to mock others to make himself feel better. And Tim would rather be in the company of Barry, than with the others who do feel that need.

Dinner for Schmucks should have worked brilliantly. The cast is in place, the premise simple yet has huge potential for comedy, and yet the movie never really settles into itself. It is too busy throwing out one liners to every really build to anything beyond them. I haven’t seen the original French film, The Dinner Game, which was the basis for this film so I really cannot compare this to that one, but I suspect the French was better. After all, if the French film was as scattershot as this film is, they never would have remade it in the first place.