LIKE House of Wax (2005) banked on people wanting to see Paris Hilton die a gruesome death, Dirty Grandpa thinks audiences want to see acclaimed actor Robert De Niro as a foul-mouthed sleaze for 100 minutes.
Basing a film, its plot and characters around a minutia of an idea or concept proves to be a backwards way to make a film; a half thought-out attempt at filmmaking with dollar signs unequivocally the main goal.
Preppy, about to be married lawyer who works at his dad’s firm Jason Kelly (Zac Efron) is tasked with driving his grandpa Dick Kelly (Robert De Niro) to Florida to honour a tradition after his grandmother dies.
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READ NOWJason soon learns his grandpa is not so keen on keeping tradition alive, so much as he is keen to have sex with the hottest young woman he can find.
A weekend of debauchery and crime ensues; apparently this is hilarious because it is all instigated by an old man with his uptight grandson in tow.
Not only have we already seen something like this (Bad Santa), but the same gags get repeated for an unbearable amount of time.
I lost count of how many times this movie thought it was funny to point out Efron’s character looks like a lesbian, or how gay another character behaves, or that grandpa just wants to have sex.
We get it. We got it in the first 10 minutes.
I am not above a bit of lowbrow humour, I was one of the few (maybe the only one?) who got a few hearty chuckles out of the widely derided Movie 43, but Dirty Grandpa has a nasty undercurrent to it.
Admittedly, it casts a wide net of insults, taking pot shots at everyone so no one is safe from its venom, and it certainly cannot be accused of discriminating, but it is devoid of any charm.
THE ESSENTIALS
Dirty Grandpa (MA)
Directed by: Dan Mazer
Starring: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Zoey Deutch
One star
Review by: Julian Wright
In cinemas now