At the Movies With Peter Travers: ‘Dinner for Schmucks,’ ‘Charlie St. Cloud’
In this week’s At the Movies, Peter Travers sizes up the new comedy Dinner for Schmucks . In this remake of a French movie, Paul Rudd plays a businessman who’s searching for the perfect guest (Steve Carell) to bring to his boss’ monthly “dinner for idiots.” The comic talent is top-notch, including hilarious performances from comic Zack Galifianakis and Flight of the Conchords‘s Jemaine Clement, but the stars could have used a better movie to showcase their gifts. Still, Schmucks is an entertaining flick that serves as a lighthearted antidote to the brain-bending Inception.
While you won’t be stupid to catch Dinner, there is one awful film opening in theaters that’d you’d be a schmuck to see: Charlie St. Cloud. In this drama, teen sensation Zac Efron plays a young man who is able to talk and play catch with his brother, who was killed in a car accident. Efron proved he was more than a heartthrob with his role in Me and Orson Welles, but St. Cloud is worthy of the Scum Bucket. “You can’t shine a turd,” Travers warns in his one-star review. “This movie is dead on arrival.”
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