The term "Americanization," and all the ugly baggage that comes with it, is pretty much personified by French writer-director Francis Veber, whose work has been translated (often by himself) into some of the worst American comedies of the past two decades, including The Toy, The Man With One Red Shoe, Pure Luck, Three Fugitives, Fathers' Day, and Buddy, Buddy. Hollywood currently has plans to remake his latest piece, and the working title alone, Dinner For Schmucks, would indicate that the cheapening process is already well under way. Not entirely disreputable, the Veber name is also behind La Cage Aux Folles, widely considered a perfect model of French farce, and his smooth mechanics are nearly enough to carry the slight, mean-spirited The Dinner Game. The titular event—a gathering held by wealthy yuppies to which each invites the biggest idiot he or she can find—never actually occurs, but the film features more than enough cruelty without it. Thierry Lhermitte is suitably unctuous as a French publisher who discovers the portly, balding, pie-faced Jacques Villeret, a "world-champion" idiot with a talent for constructing famous monuments out of matchsticks. The tables are turned when Lhermitte throws his back out and Villeret, in his efforts to help his new friend, unwittingly obliterates his marriage, his affair, and his social status. Adapted from a long-running stage play, The Dinner Game has been refined to peak comic efficiency, with every misunderstanding and hare-brained scheme neatly cascading into bigger and bigger catastrophes. While it's refreshing to see such a clean, well-constructed comedy appear during this golden age of hit-or-miss scatology, Veber's naked contempt for his characters taints the proceedings. The only way his premise could work is as vicious Buñuelian satire or as a drama. Veber misses some obvious opportunities to produce the former, and the latter has already been made, with "ugly" women replacing idiots, as Nancy Savoca's superior Dogfight.