Dirty
Grandpa
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.
|