The Dinner Game is a perfect example of well crafted French comedy with good timing. Directed by Francis Veber known for La Cage aux Folles, the movie is an adaptation of a famous French play, Le Dîner des Cons, featuring some of the actors of the original play.
The dinner game consists of a group of friends having a dinner each Wednesday, who each invite a special guest, a dumbass with stupid hobby whom they can make fun of. Unfortunately, Pierre, a wealthy publishor, gets stuck in his apartment with a back problem and his guest François who is going to ruin his life and drive him crazy. The whole movie is set in the apartment and can be almost watched as a filmed play. Of course Pierre's problems are emphasized by François's blunders and are only a pretext for some really good laughs. The timing is always perfect and there is a wondeful osmosis between the actors. Indeed Jacques Villeret (François),
Thierry Lhermitte (Pierre),Daniel Prevost (the auditor) and Francis Huster (the friend) are all well-known comedic actors and long-time friends, what makes the movie even work better. You can witness their fun playing their part and sharing it.
Another asset of the movie is that it does not attempt to be moralist regarding the cruel game they play and the poor dumb victim. Don't expect to be preached at the end like in some bad NBC movie, because when the movie gets cheesy, it bites its own tail.
Finally, if you are planning to go see The Dinner Game to look like some intellectual French wanna be, you will be disapointed, because this film is nothing but a good mainstream comedy. All the same, if you go expecting some moronic Mike Meyers-type jokes, you will also be disapointed.
A movie worth some very good laughs and the discovery that French Cinéma is not only good at boring pseudo-intellectual Parisian flicks.
The Dinner Game review
