I think the record stands firm that for decades, Robert De Niro had been one of the greatest deliverers of four-letter words in the history of film. Sure, you’ve got Samuel L. Jackson, the late Dennis Farina, Pacino in certain roles. But De Niro is right up there. So the prospect of him in a role as a hard-living, constantly swearing old dude almost seems too good to be true, and on some levels it is. DIRTY GRANDPA is a mostly empty vessel into which De Niro vomits foul language and behavior, and in many ways, that’s quite funny and more than enough to keep people entertained. Buried under all of the partying and attempts to get laid is a message about family and finding out the previously unknown lives of people you’ve known all your life. But mostly it’s about De Niro trying to fuck Aubrey Plaza, who matches De Niro in her salacious language.
Directed by Dan Mazer (I GIVE IT A YEAR, and a producer on many Sacha Baron Cohen television and film projects), DIRTY GRANDPA begins with 20-something Jason Kelly (Zac Efron) remembering fondly his younger years growing up, with his grandfather Dick (De Niro) doing a far better job raising him than his workaholic lawyer father (Dermot Mulroney). As the years went on, Jason also went into law—perhaps to get closer to his dad—giving up his high school dreams of being a photographer for something more practical. Now father and son work at the same firm, leaving grandpa Dick somewhat on the sidelines, and Jason is about a week away from getting married to the materialistic Meredith (Julianne Hough), who seems genetically engineered for Jason’s lifestyle.
But when grandma Kelly dies, Dick decides the time has come to cut loose after being utterly faithful for decades, and via trickery he recruits his grandson to accompany him to Florida to find some young tail. Early on the journey, the pair runs into Shadia (Zoey Dutch), an old classmate of Jason’s who is now an environmental activist. Dick isn’t just a master vulgarian, he’s a great liar as well, inventing stories to anyone who will listen about his relationship to Jason and where they are headed, all in the name of seducing Shadia’s sexually curious and eager friend Lenore (Plaza), who seems more into the freaky idea of sexing up an old dude than she is attracted to Dick.
From a screenplay by John Phillips, De Niro moves from funny, sexist, racist, comforting, cruel, you name it, all in a single sentence sometimes. It’s genuinely shocking what comes out of his mouth, but I’m not sure it amounts to much, even as he attempts to help his uptight grandson loosen up around the ideas of sleeping with another woman, doing drugs, drinking to excess and other borderline crimes. I’m all for raunchy comedies, especially ones that allow a few choice comic actors to shine in supporting roles. I particularly like Adam Pally as Jason’s cousin Nick, who is a little too involved in his dog breeding business; and Jason Mantzoukas as the ever-present drug dealer Tan Pam.
There’s also a strange subplot involving Dick’s past life in the military, hints of which pop up in their travels, but I’m not really sure that aspect to the storyline ever feels like anything beyond filler. I don’t need my comedies to always be full of substance (perhaps the wrong choice of words), but if a film is going to go out of its way to offend me, at least have the film deliver a solid payoff. No such luck with DIRTY GRANDPA, which doesn’t mean you won’t laugh heartily at times, but I can’t imagine revisiting this one on purpose or finding it nearly as interesting if I stumble upon it on cable in the future. I haven’t even mentioned Efron, who is part straight man for De Niro, part prop to be stripped down (there is more Efron man ass here than I would have ever imagined, and I’ve imagined a lot), drawn on, dressed funny, and generally taken to task for being a square. What he lacks in comic talent, he almost makes up for with enthusiasm.
DIRTY GRANDPA is a fun watch, but little or nothing is going to stick in your brain the next day. And if you’re easily offended by the slinging of bad language, stay far removed for this one. De Niro comes out looking the best because this is certainly a change of pace from the MEET THE PARENTS movie or last year’s timid THE INTERNB. He spouts out some masterpiece sentence construction and assorted put downs that would make a sailor blush and made me laugh, and in the end, that’s what is most important. There’s zero emotional weight to this story, which keeps it from being a classic, but sometimes you don’t need Mr. Right; you need Mr. Right Now. Gauge your mood and tolerance for rapid-fire swearing; you probably know already if you’re going to check this one out. You could do worse.
