Dirty Grandpa | Little White Lies

Dirty Grand­pa

28 Jan 2016 / Released: 29 Jan 2016

Words by Matt Thrift

Directed by Dan Mazer

Starring Aubrey Plaza, Robert De Niro, and Zac Efron

Two young men walking together, one wearing a black fringed top and yellow trousers, the other wearing a colourful shirt and sunglasses.
Two young men walking together, one wearing a black fringed top and yellow trousers, the other wearing a colourful shirt and sunglasses.
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Anticipation.

That trailer...

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Enjoyment.

Please, make it stop.

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In Retrospect.

De Niro hits rock bottom. Time for an intervention, Marty.

Robert De Niro hits an all-time low along­side Zac Efron in this insuf­fer­able road trip comedy.

In our review of last year’s mis­guid­ed Al Paci­no vehi­cle, Dan­ny Collins, we face­tious­ly sug­gest­ed that per­haps the rea­son its star and his equal­ly-regard­ed con­tem­po­rary, Robert De Niro, were churn­ing out such con­sis­tent lev­els of dreck in recent years was the result of an inside joke between the two – a com­pe­ti­tion to see who could make the worst film. In whichev­er par­al­lel uni­verse such audi­ence-trolling japery might exist, the release of Dirty Grand­pa sees the con­test unequiv­o­cal­ly closed, a cham­pi­on crowned.

If there’s a sin­gle pos­i­tive to be tak­en away for those lament­ing the post-mil­len­ni­al down­ward tra­jec­to­ry of De Niro’s career choic­es, it’s the knowl­edge that Dirty Grand­pa rep­re­sents rock bot­tom (sub-stra­tum, even) and that the next film we see him in will be – can only be – better.

For now though, this is what we’ve got: an insid­i­ous­ly mis­an­throp­ic road-trip yarn, steeped in vile dude­bro priv­i­lege mas­querad­ing as equal-oppor­tu­ni­ty offen­sive­ness. Not a sin­gle char­ac­ter (or actor) escapes with a shred of dig­ni­ty intact, as an alter­nate­ly bored or bewil­dered Zac Efron accom­pa­nies his recent­ly bereaved gramps on a skirt-chas­ing trip to Florida.

With Efron play­ing the straight-man to De Niro’s horny old toad, he’s more often than not the butt of the jokes’ – quite lit­er­al­ly in a run­ning gag that sees a grand­fa­ther stick his thumb up his grandson’s arse at every giv­en opportunity.

The road trip itself begins with an extend­ed shot of De Niro mas­tur­bat­ing, con­tin­u­ing a strange­ly recur­rent trope with­in the actor’s come­dies. What’s the obses­sion film­mak­ers have with De Niro’s junk? The Intern, The Big Wed­ding, Lit­tle Fock­ers – even 1900 – all fea­ture sequences that zero-in on his hard-on. Per­haps it’s con­trac­tu­al? A last stand of viril­i­ty as his more cel­e­brat­ed tal­ents vis­i­bly deflate; his very own phal­lo­cen­tric Alamo?

Yet it’s dif­fi­cult to feel too much sym­pa­thy for cinema’s fore­most Arch­bish­op of Peru (see 2004’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey – actu­al­ly, don’t), giv­en the vile dia­logue he’s made to spout. Jef­frey Bowyer-Chapman’s Bradley finds him­self on the receiv­ing end of one of De Niro’s most repel­lent attacks: being black and gay appar­ent­ly a gag in and of itself. Not that it’s any bet­ter for the film’s female char­ac­ters, alter­nate­ly reduced to sex­pots (poor Aubrey Plaza), har­ri­dans or chaste, would-be girl­friends. A karaōke set-piece con­struct­ed entire­ly around De Niro drop­ping the n‑bomb forms an echo cham­ber of bad judge­ment around all involved.

Dan Maz­er directs like a man in con­stant nego­ti­a­tion with an intem­per­ate black hole, lock­ing horns in a Sisyphean bat­tle against a nation’s entire tum­ble­weed stock; those inan­i­mate De Niro-com­e­dy groupies that tum­ble far to have their exis­ten­tial cries of pur­pose defin­i­tive­ly answered. He’s a long way from the smart satire of Borat, or the throw­away charms of I Give It A Year.

The ugli­est film in recent mem­o­ry – in every sense of the word – we can only hope it meets the fate it deserves. Per­haps then De Niro will put some effort into get­ting his pur­port­ed Scors­ese project, The Irish­man fast-tracked. God knows he needs it.

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