The Dinner Game

PG-13

Released Jun 25, 1998

1h 20m

Comedy

List

74%

Tomatometer

46 Reviews

90%

Audience Score

10,000+ Ratings

Wealthy Frenchmen hold a weekly contest to see who can invite the biggest idiot to their dinner parties.

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Lisa Schwarzbaum

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: B

Sep 7, 2011

Full Review

Lisa Nesselson

Variety

Weaves a simple premise into comedy gold.

Jan 14, 2008

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Andrea C. Basora

Newsweek

Despite the stagey set-up (it was originally conceived as a play and it shows), the film manages to maintain its humor and energy until the final scene in which Veber suddenly casts aside his delightful meanspiritedness and gets soft-hearted and preachy.

Jan 14, 2008

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Charles Gordon

Maclean's Magazine

One of the best of the crop of new movies, The Dinner Game, is a telling assault on the ironic sensibility.

Oct 21, 2019

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Maitland McDonagh

TV Guide

Scared of sophisticated French cinema? This coarse comedy will restore your confidence.

Rated: 1/4

Jan 14, 2008

Full Review

Doris Toumarkine

Film Journal International

Its very tautness and on-the-money performances from the odd-coupled Jacques Villeret and Thierry Lhermitte help make this a highly amusing and old-fashioned big-screen entertainment.

Jan 16, 2007

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Nathalie C

To be watch in French obviously. I watch it so many times and still enjoy it. A classic. Merci 🙏

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

10/26/22

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dan m

The original French version of "Dinner with Schmucks", which I only vaguely remember at this point. I feel like this has got to be the funnier(and better) of the two, even though like I said I don't really remember the 2010 movie. This was quite a hoot, maybe not a total LOL all the way thru, but still very amusing.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

david l

The Dinner Game can get repetitive, it's very familiar in its central relationship, and overall it felt too stagey and limited in scope, but when it worked, it worked with a pretty solid humor, and in particular the main two characters are quite well developed. Their dynamic is very memorable and a lot of fun.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

It was decent I guess. Maréne is a terrible actor and the main guy forgets his back hurts. The idiot is good, but the rest is decent or below. The sets are nothing special, it looks pretty low budget. It often fails while trying to be funny.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/03/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I shouldn’t like The Dinner Game, it goes against all logic. This is the French original that spun off into Dinner for Schmucks, a movie I greatly disliked because it was so mean-spirited and tortured the main character mercilessly, which are things I find hard to handle. Not only that, but this movie doesn’t include the actual dinner party, which is the one scene I actually liked from Dinner for Schmucks. So, why in the world was I laughing so much at this version? First of all, unlike Paul Rudd who plays a guy who is somewhat likable, Thierry Lhermitte’s character is a complete jerk. He’s the kind of person you want to see tortured for his actions. In fact, there is not much redemption for his character in the film, so I didn’t mind when the agony kept coming. Also, there’s a sweet innocence to Jacques Villeret that I didn’t feel as much from Steve Carell. Finally, the presence of a friend in Francis Huster, who was visibly laughing as things continued to get worse, kind of gave me permission to find the humor in things as well. The Dinner Game is a simple film that takes place almost entirely in one room. I appreciate the charm of that, and can see this would work brilliantly as a stage production with the right cast. The magic of the film comes from the fact that Jacques Villeret’s performance as the idiot is just grounded enough that it feels believable. The situations he stumbles into often feel like the kind of mistakes someone could make if they were a bit clumsy or easily distracted. He’s not so over-the-top insane that it makes the whole film feel like a strange fantasy world, but he’s just odd enough that you wonder if anyone could be that scatterbrained. I was also impressed how much humor they were able to create in this film almost exclusively with phone conversations. There is only a smattering of physical comedy, and the rest of the magic is created through just words from both sides of a telephone call. It’s not one of the greatest comedies I’ve ever seen, but I was pleasantly surprised by The Dinner Game.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/24/20

Full Review

Audience Member

With the action almost entirely confined to an apartment and centered on unstoppable dialogue from beginning to end, this is a very funny comedy of errors (adapted from Veber's own play) that doesn't try to hide its obvious theatrical origins and yet feels always fresh and dynamic.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

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Francis Veber

Director

Jacques Villeret

François Pignon

Thierry Lhermitte

Pierre Brochant

Catherine Frot

Marlène

Francis Huster

Just Leblanc

Daniel Prévost

Lucien Cheval

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Synopsis

Wealthy Frenchmen hold a weekly contest to see who can invite the biggest idiot to their dinner parties.

Director: Francis Veber
Screenwriter: Francis Veber
Distributor: Lions Gate Entertainment
Production Co: Gaumont, TF1 Films Production
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 25, 1998, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 20, 2018
Box Office (Gross USA): $4.1M
Runtime: 1h 20m
Sound Mix: Surround

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