DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS (12A).

Comedy. Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Stephanie Szostak, Jemaine Clement, Bruce Greenwood, Zach Galifianakis, Lucy Punch, David Walliams, Kristen Schaal.

Forrest Gump’s momma was a wise old bird. “Stupid is as stupid does”, she said, and if the mean-spirited characters in Jay Roach’s English language remake of the 1999 French comedy, Le Diner De Cons, had taken note, they would realise that the eccentrics they cruelly refer to as ‘idiots’ are anything but.

Indeed, these uniquely gifted individuals are sweet, sincere and kind, conducting themselves with impeccable manners in the face of insults and rabble-rousing from high-flying businessmen who mistake an expensive suit and a corner office for good breeding.

The corporate clowns are the real idiots here, and of course given the film’s simplistic morality, they get their just desserts.

Sadly, Dinner For Schmucks isn’t a bountiful feast of rip-roaring laughs.

Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd) is an ambitious analyst at Fender Financial, desperate to escape the sixth floor with his assistant Susana (Kristen Schaal) and ascend to the dizzy heights of the executive offices.

He seizes his chance during a meeting with owner Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood), revealing that he has wooed Swiss businessman Mueller (David Walliams) as a potential new client. Fender is impressed and invites Tim to his monthly top-secret dinner where everyone brings along a very special companion.

“You invite idiots to dinner and make fun of them?” asks Tim incredulously.

By chance, Tim runs into Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee Barry Speck (Steve Carell), who creates what he refers to as mouse-terpieces: miniature, hand-made panoramas featuring costumed, dead rodents in romantic poses.

Tim feels certain he has found the biggest idiot of them all.

Dinner For Schmucks is a series of lame jokes without punchlines that would be completely tiresome were it not for Carell's winning performance.

He plays Barry as a thoroughly decent human being, who takes people at their word and doesn’t think twice about humiliating himself for Tim “because that’s what friends do”.

Rudd has a largely reactive role, digging himself a deep hole with his girlfriend Julie and salvaging the relationship by following Barry’s advice.

The final showdown is plain ridiculous, just as Mama Gump foretold.