Rent The Dinner (2017)

Cold Cuts - The Dinner review by Count Otto Black

Not being deaf, I didn't even notice that this DVD doesn't have subtitles, and I wasn't prevented by that technical flaw from fully appreciating the movie. Unfortunately I had a different problem with it. It's a completely unenjoyable movie. Though there are good things in it, the most notable and surprising being Steve Coogan's performance as a character who isn't funny in the slightest. He has of course done straight acting before in "Philomena", but this film confirms that even if he never cracks another joke in his life, he won't be short of work as a character actor specialising in men on the edge of a nervous breakdown, or as he is in this film, well over the edge. I never thought I'd see Steve Coogan act Richard Gere off the screen, but he wins the contest hands down.

Unfortunately his character, though more complex and interesting than anybody else in the film, isn't very likeable, except in comparison with the appalling people who surround him. Absolutely nobody comes out of it looking good, because the oddly structured narrative barely allows us to see any of them behaving normally or being pleasant to anyone, and when it does, we're already so accustomed to seeing them snapping at each other that we don't care. And why on earth is the story centred around the main characters having dinner in a ludicrously pretentious restaurant? Judging by some of his recent television work, it's starting to look as though Steve Coogan's contract stipulates that he must be served with obscenely expensive gourmet food on screen, no matter how little it has to do with the plot. In the context of this film, it's completely unbelievable that anyone, especially a man running for the US senate, would have the kind of conversation these people do, often very loudly, in a restaurant!

These aren't the only problems. The central underlying theme of mental illness is handled in a very dubious way, and Coogan's otherwise realistic portrayal of a man driven too far by a combination of a hereditary tendency to develop mental health issues and domestic problems that would put almost unendurable pressure on anyone is undermined by the nasty implication that people with any kind of mental illness, even a relatively minor one not requiring hospitalisation, are potentially capable of extreme violence. The question on the poster, "How far would you go to protect your children?", which sounds like a tag-line from the "Taken" franchise, turns out to refer to something altogether different, and so horrible that our sympathies aren't with the children at all. And that special chemistry Gere and Coogan need to come across convincingly as brothers simply isn't there. These aren't two closely related men who, though now estranged, grew up together. These are two blokes who have just met for the first time and wish they hadn't.

As for that ending, which seems to come out of nowhere and then doesn't quite know what to do with itself, without giving away any plot spoilers, I suspect it was rewritten at the last minute, thus rendering most of what has led up to it strangely pointless. As I said, the acting's good, especially that of Steve Coogan, but the characters are nasty, selfish people who don't even seem to like their closest relatives much, apart from their teenage sons, who turn out to be the least likeable characters of all. So why should we care what happens to any of them? I certainly didn't. Technically it's a good film, but I can't imagine anyone actually enjoying it. Though it did leave me looking forward to Steve Coogan's future rôles in movies which, though serious, aren't quite as miserable as this one.

Mumbled and pretentious - The Dinner review by TR

What...no subtitles? As if this wasn't bad enough, you then have the characters mumbling into their soup, or main course, or whatever. This doesn't do what it says on the can; there are too many distracting flashbacks, populated by even more unbearable types, making "The Dinner" an interminable bore, rather than the feisty character study it could, and should have been.

Great cast bad film... - The Dinner review by JB

As I liked the cast members I was looking forward to seeing this film, however I have never been as disappointed in a film for a long time. It had no appeal and had no real ending that made sense. A complete waste of time.

The Dinner - The Dinner review by Ali

The worst film we have seen for ages - so disappointing! We chose it because of the very good cast, but agree with all the previous reviews - poor diction and very poor story. We didn,t finish it, it was completely bewildering! A waste of time!

A meal out I could have done without - The Dinner review by HE

A very disappointing film about a fascinating moral dilemma about being a parent, a citizen, a spouse etc. I was aghast that the characters chose such a public setting to discuss the really grave issues that both families faced. I could not engage with any of them, so had no sympathy at all. The politician could only be a politician, not a Dad, etc. Surely all these fine actors can find better material than this?

Rubbish - The Dinner review by CB

What a terrible film I only watched it for 15 minutes and wated 15 minutes of my life

Bad Bad Bad - The Dinner review by DH

We have only given up on a handful of films in the last 12 years of being with film clubs but I'm afraid this had us beat. It was so dull that after 1 hour of not knowing what was going on we finally decided to abandon and hit the eject button. We then turned to the internet to find out the answers to what we were missing about this movie. We found very quickly that we were joining a whole community of people who had done exactly the same as us. This film is terrible, everyone says how good the book is (can't comment) but it doesn't transfer to the film. Reading the spoilers we realised that we didn't miss much. Perhaps we just missed the point but it was going nowhere fast. Add to the mix characters that you truly don't care about and you have the perfect recipe for a bad movie.

My advice is to avoid like the plague.