[5]

A business man (Paul Rudd) is invited to a clandestine ‘dinner with idiots’ in which he’s encouraged to bring the weirdest, most bizarre guest he can find for the rest of the business partners to gawk. Everyone brings a weirdo, and whoever brings the weirdest person, wins a substantial prize. Rudd manages to find an IRS employee (Steve Carell) who spends all his free time building creepy dioramas with taxidermied mice.

With the charm and talent of Rudd and Carell, and a spiffy supporting cast that includes the likes of Bruce Greenwood and Zach Galifianakis, you start to expect more from this movie than you’re going to get. The tone is caught somewhere between farce and romantic comedy, skewing a little too close to the latter for my taste. The laughs are scattershot, but the movie has its moments. Highlights include the climactic dinner scene (especially the medium who channels the sensation of a broiling lobster) and a quirky turn by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as a hooved, horned, sex-crazed artiste.