Dirty Grandpa

Starring: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Zoey Deutch, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Mantzoukas, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Hough, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Danny Glover
Directed by: Don Mazer
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
2016

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A straight-laced guy (Zac Efron) is shocked when his grandfather (Robert De Niro) insists he drive him to Florida, making immoral stops along the way.

Review:

Tim: I have to admit I didn't have the highest hopes for Dirty Grandpa. It seemed like another forgettable, lackluster comedy. I was pleasantly surprised to discover there's more to this movie than I expected. It'll never be considered a classic comedy, but it does enough right to be considered a solid, funny film. I had enough fun watching this movie to consider it a win.

The biggest appeal of the movie is the pairing of Robert De Niro and Zac Efron. De Niro is a legend still, and he brings his talent and his impressive comedic timing to this role. It's fun seeing him embrace the raunchier side of his personality. The script gives him enough lewd and cringe-inducing lines to keep you interested. His character lives up to the title of the film (although there's an unexpected subtext which gives his character- and the film- a little more gravitas). When it comes down to it, it's entertaining to see De Niro play a dirty role like this. Efron continues to make it hard for me to hate him. He shows some decent range here, for most of the movie, he's the exact opposite of his character in Neighbors, for example. It's impressive that he can play the hard-partying frat boy and also play his uptight stick-in-the-mud (who obviously embraces his inner party animal at various points in the movie). De Niro and Efron play well off each other and made me laugh.

The supporting cast is decent. It was fun to see Aubrey Plaza as a carefree girl obsessed with older men. She didn't do anything astounding, but she worked well. I like Jason Mantzoukas and he added some humor to the film. I don't like Julianne Hough, but she was well cast as a very unlikable character. I'm used to not liking her, so the part was perfect for her. I loved seeing Danny Glover here, but his presence is a bit of a head scratcher, as he has nothing of substance to do. His talent was wasted here. Dermot Mulroney was fine, but isn't given much to do, either. Still, as a whole, the cast isn't bad.

I did find the movie to be fairly funny. For sure, there's a lot of jokes that don't connect. However, the movie embraces it's R-rating to give us some funny lines and situations. I still think the "Keynote Speaker" line De Niro utters early in the film was hands-down the funniest moment of the film. Efron's waking up on the beach and the miscommunication that follows also had me laughing. This is the kind of film that relies on crude humor almost extensively, but there's something to be said for those kinds of comedies. You might not be getting a ton of gold here, but the script is written well enough to have kept me entertained. I also appreciated the film's attempt to be more than just a dumb, lewd comedy. Those attempts don't always succeed and felt a little forced, but I very much appreciated the attempt to be more than the norm. That helped the movie in my mind.

Dirty Grandpa is about what you would expect to get from an R-rated comedy with that title. However, it strives to be more than the lowest common denominator, and it does manage to be entertaining and funny. This is still a flawed film, but it did enough for me to consider this a worthwhile comedy. Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Neighbors, Meet the Parents, Bad Santa