User Reviews

I can't believe what I just saw. This film was simultaneously about nothing and yet a complete conglomeration of everything they could squeeze into 2 hours. The plot doesn't even actually come into play until an hour and a half into the film and even when that happens it makes no sense. I can't say a single good thing about this movie. Everything about this movie is...for lack of a better term...f*cked. The direction is f*cked. The story is f*cked. The characters are f*cked. The tone is f*cked. The editing is REALLY F*CKED. Everything about this movie, aside from a few good camera shots, is terrible. Everything. The acting somehow was terrible. When you have Richard Gere and Steve Coogan in a movie, I expect at least them to be good in their roles and not even they could escape the suckfest this film is.

I wish I could say what this movie was even about, but even if I had a gun pointed directly at my head I couldn't tell you for sure what this movie is really about. Here's my best try though...okay...two older rich white couples with rich white problems go to a luxurious restaurant for dinner to have flashbacks about their spouses having cancer, mental disorders, their kids throwing basketballs through store shop windows, mommy issues, compare all their problems to the Battle of Gettysburg, and when they have the time they finally get around to talking out loud about how they should figure out whether or not to turn their sons in for murdering a homeless woman at an ATM by setting her on fire...which the ATM camera filmed...and they also filmed with their phones...and posted it on a discount YouTube site...

But don't worry about any of that because by the end of it, NOTHING IS RESOLVED. It literally at the most awkward time I've ever seen a movie end, it cuts to black. The parents decide to wait a few days to think on whether they'll actually turn their boys in for murder, in the meantime they'll take a vacation. One of the parents (played by Steve Coogan) is crazy and attempts to murder his nephew (Richard Gere's son), which is one of the sons involved that is blackmailing Coogan's son. Gere and the wives arrive before Coogan can do anything, Gere beats up Coogan and they all call the boy on their phones to try to get a hold of him to make sure he's alright. I think they do get a hold of him, but it was unclear. Camera takes one last look at Coogan being winded from getting his butt kicked. Cut to black. Credits...screw this movie.

Everything about this movie was shockingly incompetent. From relatively awkward to jaw dropping, God awful editing. Pretentious and hollow dialog and character writing. Nonsensical story with zero structure to it. Cheap looking cinematography that tries its hardest to look like it has a budget but falls short. The tone is about as stable as a man hanging himself from his busted ceiling fan to jerk off to crumpled pictures of goats...yeah, I dare you to get that image out of your head. Seriously, this movie is the definition of a train wreck. I sincerely wish I had just went to the train tracks near my apartment, laid down, and waited. It would have been a more productive use of my time instead of sitting around for 2 hours, waiting for this piece of crap to finally blow its own brains out as an ending.

A lot of movies these days are based off of books because Hollywood cannot think of anything original on their own. It's unfortunate though when they base a movie off a book and don't stick to the book's storyline which ends up being why people say the book was better. This is the case with The Dinner where two families gather to discuss a crime their sons have committed and whether or not they should let them get away with it or turn their sons in. Throughout the dinner in the novel the leading character flashes back to times when he showed behavior that is typically that of a sociopath. In the book he doesn't show much emotion neither does his son which is why he believes his son is like him. The movie however paints the leading character as overly emotional and mental. Also you're going to end the movie with all the characters on their cell phones talking to god knows who and the main character laughing hysterically. Lame. In the book their son Michael kills his cousin Bo and gets rid of his body. He does this without remorse just as he committed the crime leading you to believe he is a sociopath like his father. Also at a restaurant across the street the main character's wife hits the politician brother over the head with a wine bottle to prevent him from throwing the press conference. He ends up in the hospital and she gets arrested. I don't mind that they decided to make the characters American but I do mind that they ruined the story and for one not as good. They took away a lot and added in nothing remarkable. As a book it was entertaining and memorable however as a movie it was weird, confusing and boring.

The opening visuals of this film include pans of great trees barren in the winter with a pale sky overhead, accompanied by an ominous soundtrack and displays of exotic meals you can't name let alone ever have a chance to ingest yourself.

And thus the 'table is set' for two families forever derailed by their grossly immature and entitled son's violent murder of a homeless woman, and the video to prove it.

A formal dinner is arranged at an exclusive restaurant between the two couples in hope of a resolution that seems doomed from the start.

And it pretty much is.

The central character of the story, you would think, would be Richard Gere's Stan Lohman, a successful politician on the verge of running for Mayor. But the bulk of the attention quickly shifts to his brother Paul (Steve Coogan).

Paul, we learn, has had a lifetime of mental issues. He doesn't exactly babble incoherently, but he is acutely focused on deeper observations of the human experience through the lens of history that others quickly dismiss as simple madness.

And this is where the story seems to lose it focus, though not completely.

You might begin to wonder to yourself at times where exactly this story is headed. Is it about the boy's crimes? Their parent's attempt to deal with it? -Or Paul's borderline insanity and his preoccupation with the American Civil War, particularly the battle for Gettysburg.

Aside from that, we are treated to the vapid attitudes of the rich and privileged when it comes to protecting their children from themselves.

Stan, on one hand, seems resolute on turning his own son over to the authorities to avoid being exposed in a cover up. But Stan's intentions are hard to plumb.

Is he really trying to do the right thing? Or is it all to save his own political career? Doesn't really matter, because his efforts are quickly annihilated by his own wife's and sister-in-law's stead-fast position of burying the situation at all costs.

Stan's wife in particular deludes herself to a sickening degree by blaming the poor homeless woman for her own death. It's a hard bit to stomach.

As the discussion soldiers on, Paul frequently leaves the table to ruminate on his own son, sharply aware that his offspring has probably inherited a level or two of his own madness.

Yet Paul's point of contention seems to be of a well-intentioned but failed idealist, while his son's condition reeks of glee-full anti-social depravity.

The ending is anything but tidy when Paul commits to his own act of savagery.

A very interesting film to be enjoyed by thinking people, but a production that is jumbled and a little rocky to get through for everybody else.

I thought this would be an interesting movie about the moral decision behind the plot (what would you do if your son did something awful? would you turn him in to the police?). These are the questions that are posed in the trailer. But the movie is scattered, terribly and unjustifiably long (2 hours) and the ending doesn't provide closure. I hate open endings.

By any standard, The Dinner is an exercise in indigestion, two dysfunctional sets of parents try to figure out what to do about the crime their two young sons have committed. While the dialogue is not as bright as Edward Albee's in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, or even the similarly plotted Carnage, the staging is much more open, giving the sense that we can freely indulge allegory and perhaps lay the proceedings on our own door steps.

The parents hope no one will find out about the crime. Except that there is a video an adopted African-American sibling made and is thinking of blackmailing them. For the adults, the situation endangers their own lives, which could be forever changed with the disclosure.

The central conflict of wills takes place in an impossibly posh restaurant, with course descriptions about the length of a short essay, and where the high price of the meals pales next to the price everyone at the table will pay.

Stan Lohman (possibly suggesting the doomed Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman), played elegantly by Richard Gere (in a successful time of his career considering the recent release of Norman), is a congressman running for governor and on the eve of passing mental health legislation. Because his brother, former history teacher Paul (Steve Coogan), has mental issues, the legislation has more importance than usual. Paul unfortunately sabotages every conversation with rants about the world, as such also a danger to the good will of the audience which must endure his diatribes.

The better angel of this verbal slug fest, the congressman, considers jettisoning his political future for the sake of his son's future mental health, i.e., telling all to the press. Although he is not blameless in life, the others are deplorable in their self-serving arguments.

His wife, Clare (Laura Linney), and sister in law, Katelyn (Rebecca Hall), try to dissuade Stan, while Paul gradually drifts away through madness or willful ignorance. Regardless, writer-director Oren Moverman does an effective job keeping track while he cuts from dinner to the boys with their crime and to those who leave the table for periods of time.

Although I'm not sure the writers want to move too obviously in favor of Stan's moral high ground, they do persuasively show the tangled web deceit weaves as well as the corrosive nature of silence. For this word-loving critic, the emphasis on dialogue is nectar considering the blockbusters I must endure this summer.

Because this entertaining stage-like drama moves in and around idealism and pragmatism, it's nice to know that some family problems are almost unsolvable, if not downright intractable. Welcome to our collective American dinners, where even unspoken words are time bombs.

"The Dinner" is a 2017 movie and the newest effort by writer and director Oren Moverman. The film is an American production in the English language and runs for pretty much exactly two hours. It is based on a novel by Dutch writer Herman Koch. Moverman is mostly known today for The Messenger today for which he also managed to score an Oscar nomination. I think that is also the only work I have seen from him so far. And while it is definitely weaker than The Messnger, "The Dinner" is still a fairly good watch for the most part. This has partially to do with the cast. i am a great Steve Coogan fan and it is pretty amazing how he holds his own so well next to these perhaps more experienced and certainly more lauded actors. He was the MVP here, no doubt about. But Gere and Hall also did a pretty decent job I guess and while I would say I am not the greatest Richard Gere fan, I cannot deny I liked his turn. Hall is easy on the eyes as always and probably has the least material to shine from the leading quartet here, but she does a decent job with what she is given. As for Laura Linney, I generally really dislike her and while she had once again 2-3 moments where she really acted in a cringeworthy and unbearably over-the-top manner, it needs to be said that she is luckily bearable for the rest of the film.

The story is about two well-off couple meeting at a restaurant to have dinner and discuss the horrible crime their sons committed and what they will do to deal with the situation. Take the blame or try to hide what they did. The men are brothers and one of them is an influential politician while the other is a mentally struggling historian. The scenes at the restaurant were definitely the film's very biggest strength. Every time the action moves away to other places, it got weaker. The best example is probably the elaboration on Coogan's character's struggles, the scene at the former battlefield or the scene at the house with his son who is about to be taken from him. Those weren't necessarily bad things, but I feel they elaborated on story lines that just made no impact at all. And at this runtime, I certainly could have lived with them being left out completely. Or include something other instead, something more relevant. We get to see Coogan and Linney talk before the dinner. Why not include such a scene with Hall and Gere as well. In general, I felt there could have been a lot more concerning Hall's character, so maybe we won't see her as the trophy wife she calls herself near the very end. Or just keep the film at 90 minutes max and have it take place exclusively, maybe in real time, at the diner. I think I would have preferred that. One reason for this is also that the very final scene was once again pretty underwhelming. The almost murder felt weak and for the sake of it and made little sense to me. Of course, mentally ill people commit illogical acts if they aren't on their medication, but honestly it did not fit in at all with everything about the story and Coogan's character from before. Luckily his final comments ("apes with phones" e.g.) still let the film end on a high note because that's really what it felt like to see all four of them there at the very end. Another weakness was probably Adepero Oduye, who added absolutely nothing for me and her intrusion stopped being funny fairly quickly too. I know they wanted us to know that he is an important politician, but there could have been more memorable ways than the inclusion of a busy assistant.

Overall, nonetheless it was a decent watch. Yes there are weaknesses, but there are also good moments, like the interactions with the restaurant employees for example. Reading the plot and watching the trailer, it reminded me a bit of Polanski's Carnage. Yet to see this one too. I must say that this review here comes from someone who has not red Koch's original work and most likely never will, so it is difficult for me to say how good or bad it is compared to the book. I can only say I enjoyed the watch for the most part and honestly these scenes with the boys and homeless woman were really heartbreakingly sad. These were really the only scenes outside the restaurant that should have been kept in I believe. There is certainly some irony to the two female characters calling it an accident at the very end. Mentioning these two female characters, I must say that the cancer part about Linney's character was also something that added almost nothing, except maybe showing Coogan's character's anger at the store where she bought her cigarettes. Or how he gave a bad approach about guilt and innocence by forcing his son to take the blame for what he did. But this is not really enough to justify this scene. Now you know what I liked and didn't like about the movie and I believe the currently pretty low rating on IMDb is bit unfair. I recommend "The Dinner". It's not anywhere near my favorites of the year, but if you like one or two of the actors like I do (Coogan, Hall), then it is worth checking out for sure.