Safety first. “Dinner for Schmucks” clings to that mantra like a corporate lawyer with executive overlords deathly afraid of dishing out workers comp checks to injured employees. The production studio, Spyglass Entertainment, must have circulated a memo during pre-production forbidding experimentation of any kind, taking chances, sharpening the writing, casting out of type or any other non-commercial decision with even the slightest signs of artistic integrity.

It’s not that “Schmucks” is bad.  It can be quite funny, at least intermittently.  But it reeks of stock, formulaic, standard, unoriginal cookie cutter filmmaking.  Paul Rudd plays the Paul Rudd character — an average, modest, generally likable protagonist who always seems to find himself inexplicably and disproportionately on the wrong side of karma.  Steve Carrell plays the Steve Carrell character — a clueless, severely socially awkward, impossibly annoying loner with a heart of gold.  This odd couple comes together under duplicitous circumstances, becomes entangled in a variety of outrageous situations and eventually comes out on the other side as better people with better stations in life.

A remake of the 1998 French comedy, “The Dinner Game,” Jay Roach’s “Schmucks” takes the studio’s presumed banality-at-all-costs approach and adds a layer of botched remake syndrome as humdrum icing on the mediocrity cake.  Francis Veber’s original story is witty, compelling and funny.  Roach’s remake, much like Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen,” faithfully recreates all the major plot points and conflicts of its source material, but removes virtually everything that made the original great.  ”The Dinner Game” centers on a cold, unlikable protagonist who eventually must answer for his behavior, in a serious way.  Hollywood avoids unlikable protagonists like the plague.  They’re not perceived as financially viable.  And so “Schmucks” is white-washed with a mostly well-meaning lead, which, of course, muzzles the film’s bite and drains it of any real power or substance.  We’re left with an already basically decent guy who learns that not making fun of innocent dunderheads in the pursuit of corporate status and luxury is wrong.  Who knew?

But the players on screen are not at fault for the mediocrity of “Schmucks.”  The writing must bear the brunt of that blame.  Rudd and Carrell are both gifted performers and are almost always fun to watch.  Zach Galifianakis has a small role but makes it count.  Jemaine Clement, one half of Flight of the Conchords, who plays the impossibly pretentious ego-maniacal artist, Kieran Vollard, is the highlight of the film.  It almost requires an active disregard for good comedy writing to waste so much talent.