Review: Dirty Grandpa

Dirty Grandpa (15)

USA 2016 115 mins Dir: Dan Mazer Starring: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Zoey Deutch, Aubrey Plaza, Julianne Hough, Dermot Mulroney

Have the Pod People invaded? On the basis of reprehensible new ‘comedy’ Bad Grandpa, it would certainly appear so: a deeply off-putting simulation of human behaviour and characters, the movie is so wrong-headed in every way that one might suspect David Cronenberg has directed it for ironic kicks. Sadly, the opposite is true and the horror is confirmed: this is a movie labouring under the belief that it is actually truthful and funny.

It also continues the downward spiral of Robert De Niro, who really does look like he’s come a long way from the highlights of the Meet the Parents sequels, Grudge Match and The Big Wedding. He plays recently widowed Army vet Dick who is reluctantly taken on a lewd road trip to Florida by his uptight lawyer grandson Jason (Zac Efron). Having made a promise to his late wife of 40 years that he’d get back out there and bed every woman he could find, Dick unleashes an insatiably horny, alcohol-fuelled side to his personality that Jason never knew about; it would be funny, were the characters remotely believable or the script remotely well written.

In fact it’s downright unsettling, a brew so toxic that a hazmat suit should be compulsory upon viewing. The film showcases a staggering level of contempt for all its characters, be they elderly, black, gay, female or holding down a successful career. Jason repeatedly states that he is a handler of ‘SCC compliance’ in his job; it’s never explained what that means but it doesn’t matter, because the movie is using crass shorthand to depict him as a stuffed shirt and a complete square in contrast to his granddad’s bawdy antics.

Jason is also set to get married to demanding Meredith (Julianne Hough), quite the worst caricature of the high-maintenance blonde in recent movie memory. And of course, the woman to show Jason the possibility of an alternative future is hippy-loving photographer Shadia (Zoey Deutch). Yes, in the world of the movie all women are either uptight harpies, quirky creatives or, in the case of Aubrey Plaza’s Lenore, the woman inexplicably lusting after Dick’s dick, complete sluts. The laziness of both the script and I Give It a Year filmmaker Dan Mazer’s pitiful direction boggles the mind. Meanwhile, one so-called joke implying abuse upon a minor should really be called in front of some sort of tribunal.

And let’s not skirt the real elephant in the corner here. As an actor, Robert De Niro has had as many misses as hits, but it’s genuinely hard to reconcile the actor from Raging Bull with the diabolical caricature forced upon us here. The movie itself can’t even seem to figure out the character: Dick seems genuinely remorseful during the opening funeral scenes, only for us to cut a few seconds later to Jason walking in on him wanking furiously in an armchair. Later on, he tries out variants on the word ‘cockblock’ that are as tiresomely predictable as they are unfunny, the relentlessly tedious, potty-mouthed language making one long for the wonderfully vicious verbal dexterity of say, Armando Ianucci’s The Thick of It. And when the movie attempts to ladle on the maudlin sentimentality and actually get us to care about the characters, it gets even more sickening.

It’s almost certainly the worst character De Niro has ever played and one really has to question his involvement: did he sign up to a completely different script, was it changed midway through production or was this simply a chance for him to cut loose? Even given his patchy hit rate of the last 15 years, it’s genuinely hard to see what the once-esteemed Oscar winner saw in the script. Dismally unfunny and unpleasant, with De Niro in the lead it also feels profoundly sad.