Dinner for Schmucks Review

Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd) comes up with a way to get wealthy businessman Martin Mueller (David Walliams) as a client. Impressed by Tim's ingenuity, his boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood) says Tim is a candidate for a promotion but wants to get to know him better. He invites him to a dinner in which he must find and bring an eccentric person with a special talent to be mocked by the executives; the winner earns a trophy and the executive that brought him or her gets glory. Tim excitedly tells his long-time girlfriend, Julie (Stéphanie Szostak), about the possible promotion and dinner but she is offended by the idea of inviting strange people to a dinner just to mock them and tells him to refuse the invitation.

The next day Tim accidentally hits Barry Speck (Steve Carell) with his car when Barry tries to retrieve a dead mouse from the road. Witnessing Barry's bizarre behavior, including taxidermy and arranging mice into dioramas based on famous artwork, known as "Mousterpieces", Tim realizes he is the perfect idiot for the dinner. Julie finds out Tim is inviting Barry to the dinner and leaves their apartment after Tim insists on going, stating he has to in order to continue providing for them. Barry shows up at Tim's apartment thinking that the dinner event was that same evening, and accidentally invites over Darla (Lucy Punch) , a girl Tim once had a one night stand with and who is obsessed with him. After Tim angrily scolds Barry for inviting Darla over and informs him who she is, Barry takes it upon himself to keep Darla away from Tim and accidentally ends up confronting Julie returning to the apartment. Their conversation leads her to believe Tim is cheating on her and she once again leaves. After Tim realizes what Barry has done he believes Julie may be at the home of Kieran Vollard (Jemaine Clement) , an artist whose work she is selling at a gallery and who has expressed an interest in her.

Tim and Barry sneak into Vollard's apartment but learn that he is at his ranch. The two return home and Barry lets Darla into the house. Julie calls and asks Tim if he's having an affair and Darla steals the phone and stuffs it down her pants. The call ends abruptly, giving Julie the impression that Tim is, in fact, cheating on her. While Tim hides in his bedroom trying to reach Julie, Darla and Barry get into a bar-style fight, scaring Darla away.

Barry offers to take Tim to his job at the IRS to find Vollard's ranch address, where they meet up with Barry's boss and rival, Therman Murche (Zach Galifianakis) who claims to have the "talent" of mind control, and has authored a book about his talent. Therman is also revealed to have stolen Barry's ex-wife after Barry caught them cheating. Barry, Tim and Therman have a strange encounter at the IRS office, which only results in Tim getting audited. Tim leaves the next day for a brunch with the Mueller and his wife but Barry crashes it, bringing Darla along pretending to be Julie. Tim is pushed into asking Darla to marry him by Barry and Julie walks in during the proposal. Tim and Barry chase Julie down to Vollard's ranch, where Tim finally snaps at Barry about his actions.

To his surprise Tim finds Barry already at the dinner party, having forgiven Tim for his outburst. Barry's antics along with his "Mousterpieces" are a hit with the group, and he is seemingly a shoo-in for the trophy. Unexpectedly, however, Therman arrives as the "guest" of another executive, embarrassing Barry with his mind control. Tim then tells Barry everything and, after some encouragement, gets Barry to defeat Therman by using his own powers of "brain control". Fender congratulates Tim on bringing Barry to the dinner as his idiot, and Tim, offended, insults Fender before defending Barry. The other guests then learn they were brought to the dinner only to be mocked, leading to a chaotic brawl between the guests and the executives. The brawl ultimately leads to Mueller losing his finger and prized family ring and Fender's mansion burning down.

After returning to Tim's apartment, Tim and Julie manage to reconcile with Barry's help. Tim is fired as is Julie after Barry makes Vollard realize it would be a problem to have her continue working for him. Tim and Julie marry, Barry gets to have sex with Darla and also does some artwork with Vollard while Therman writes a book in a mental hospital.