Along with a couple of iffy Focker sequels and the lamentable Last Vegas, the latter half of De Niro’s career has been tarnished with the type of bruising refuse that would trigger a Max Cady/Travis Bickle combo killing spree, or at least an intrepid musical number. Even his David O’ Russell films have waned in quality but while the term “career low” is paraded too often, particularly in relation to De Niro’s late
r work, it’s hard to imagine him ever appearing in anything worse than Dirty Grandpa: this wretchedly turgid sex comedy about widowed grandfather Dick Kelly (De Niro) who, in the shadow of his wife’s death, sets out on a quest with his grandson Jason (Zac Efron) to sleep with as many women as possible and get utterly munted in the process.
The slither of a story sees Zac Efron’s vacuous lawyer Jason, on the verge of marrying the equally airless Meredith (Julianne Hough). After his grandmother passes away Jason journeys far with his grieving grandfather to mourn and distance himself from the stress of wedding planning, but Dick has other plans. Ones that involve a banquet of brazen debauchery which turns their family outing into a nightmarish ersatz-stag weekend that makes The Hangover chaps’ antics look like a U rated amble through Disney Land. Instead of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll we have masturbation, Xanax and hip hop. Crack is consumed, barely clothed grinding occurs and the masturbation is frenzied, determined and unabashed (De Niro doesn’t stop when his grandson walks in).
“Twists” and arcs are flippantly woven to the point of irrelevance and there is no genuine heart-felt journey where Dick and Jason bond during their time of hardship, as the surface story suggests. Dirty Grandpa is simply unadulterated, sick coloured inanity, tainted and anarchic yet totally inapt. Penises are scrawled on sleeping faces, clothes are encrusted with maps of man-jam before being gilded in public, and the “n” word is uttered (twice) by De Niro: once in the context of a live rap eruption then again nonchalantly as a passing remark. Dick jokes are deployed like hydrogen bombs along with a huddle of homophobic/ sexist taunts, relayed without any obvious irony. There is also a paedophile sight-gag, just in case the involuntary retch reflex didn’t summon enough bile. But before we parade with placards through the corridors of the BBFC, begging them to cut the entire film out of existence, it should be noted that, as well as inappropriate, Dirty Grandpa is also total rubbish.
The characters are all deplorable. Even Jason’s voice of reason amidst the zoo of degenerates is persistently mocked throughout and he is frequently presented as dim-witted and weak. But despite the terrible characters, the acting isn’t bad. De Niro is offhand but decent, even when phoning it in, and Aubrey Plaza seethes as a sordid nymphomaniac with a proclivity for old men. Dirty Grandpa combines the kind of American 80s sex comedy that adorned Porky’s, Screwballs and Bachelor Party, with a shade of saucy, British seaside humour, the likes of which “bejewelled” the tawdry Robin Asquith starring Confessions films throughout the 1970s. But if the thought of De Niro doing a big screen Benny Hill, sped up with his Florida shirt open while flaunting that perplexed smirk and skittering after bikini-clad women, might seem rather amusing, it’s actually a little unsettling.
In the hands of Todd Solondz, Terry Zwigoff or John Waters, Dirty Grandpa could have been a unique endeavour, but Brit director Dan Mazer has excreted the mightiest blot on De Niro’s CV yet. Maybe one day a real rain will come and wash it all away (fingers still crossed for The Irishman) but it will take a unyielding, mighty downpour to sluice off this stink bomb.
