The Dinner (2017) *

Directed by:  Oren Moverman

Starring:  Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall, Chloe Sevigny, Charlie Plummer, Michael Chernus, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick,

The Dinner spends more time interrupting itself and straying off course than it does sticking to its story, which resembles Roman Polanski's Carnage (2011) in its premise of two sets of parents discussing how to handle a violent situation regarding their respective children.    The actors are ones I've admired before and will admire again, but here they are adrift in a thankless story that meanders along in no hurry to go anywhere in particular.

Richard Gere and Rebecca Hall play Stan Lohman, a Congressman running for governor and his wife Katelyn, who meet with Stan's brother Paul (Coogan) and his wife Claire (Linney) for dinner at a high-end restaurant where the maitre d' has the unenviable task of describing the food they are about to eat with each course.    They all should have just agreed to get a burger somewhere.   It doesn't matter much anyway because before they can get down to business, one or all members of the party are pulled away from the table throughout dinner with either urgent phone calls or an occasional fit of anger, resentment, etc.    The group spends more time away from the table than actually eating.

The real reason the group meets for dinner is because Stan's son Rick (Davey-Fitzpatrick) and Paul's son Charlie (Plummer) commit a horrific crime against a homeless woman sleeping in the ATM vestibule the drunken teens stumble upon one cold winter night.    They verbally abuse her, throw objects at her, and then throw lit matches at her which ultimately burn the woman to death.    The event is caught on camera, while the boys sadistically record the death with their cell phones.    But, there are many, many other subplots which the movie delves into with interminable flashbacks.   Such as Paul's mental illness, Claire's enabling and her battle with cancer, Stan's attempts to help his resentful brother by taking him on a tour of Gettysburg which seems to last as long as the battle itself, and Stan's attempts to pass a bill which cause him to scurry for last-minute votes and interruptions from his campaign manager.

There is much more which only adds up to nothingness.    The group only seriously begins talking about the real issue with about twenty minutes left in the movie.    Each has his or her own moral quandaries to battle while trying to determine the best way to deal with these rotten kids.    The teens are unsympathetic a-holes whom Claire describes as "good kids,":   After witnessing what they do to the homeless woman, I would hate to see what lengths these teens would have to go to dissuade her opinion.     If The Dinner had taken the route previously traveled by Carnage, this would have been a tighter, shorter, and possibly more satisfying film.    But, as it is the film keeps getting in its own way and getting in our way of enjoying it.    Everyone's back story leaves us with a big "So what?" since these don't have any legitimate impact on the main story.   

The Dinner then has the gall to leave us with a cliffhanger at the end, as if we were somehow going to clamor for The Dinner, Part 2.    We spent entirely too much time with these people already.    The ending doesn't necessarily have to be satisfying, since nothing in the movie is anyhow, but at least give us some sort of payoff for our patience, which was taxed well before the main course was served.