Dirty Grandpa
1.5 Waffles!

Zac “8-Pack”Efron stars as Jason – a preppy, extremely uptight, nerdy lawyer set to get married in a week. After his grandmother’s death, Jason’s grandfather, Dick (Robert De Niro), asks him to drive the retired man to Florida because he wants to see an old Army buddy, and his failing eyesight has led to the loss of his driver’s license.

Of course, it’s all a trick to get Jason to take Dick to Daytona Beach for Spring Break, where the old guy wants to live it up in every hedonistic, perverted way possible, and he is dragging the young guy straight into the sewer with him.

Can Jason make it back in time for the wedding?

Dirty Grandpa is another outrageous, crazy, outlandish comedy that ends up pulling its punches, chickening out and diverting into a more traditional, boring direction, when it has any direction at all.

Writer John Phillips seems to start off on the right foot, as we see the outspoken Dick spouting every filthy thought that is springing into his mind, while Efron and De Niro do a solid job establishing the odd couple with a role reversal. Most of the dialogue is hit or miss as Phillips starts throwing any possible joke in here to make us laugh. You have to admit, De Niro and Phillips are trying their best to earn the R-rating.

However, Dirty Grandpa quickly loses steam as Phillips and director Dan Mazer don’t give the movie a solid plot to follow. Our characters are wandering from scene to scene without purpose like comedy treasure hunters wandering the forest without a treasure map.

Eventually, the story becomes overly conventional as the absurdity and silliness yields to phony emotion and failed attempts at heartfelt moments. Suddenly, Dirty Grandpa is a lesson about life and choices and following your heart? Are these the scenes they gave to De Niro to convince him to make the movie, then kind of surprised him with the other stuff after he cashed the check?

I wish Mazer and Phillips committed to the zaniness as much as Efron and De Niro.

Dirty Grandpa is rated R for crude sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, and for language and drug use.