CLEVELAND, Ohio -- I don't know who specifically is to blame for this super crude trend in American movie comedies. Is it Howard Stern? Adam Sandler? The Farrelly Brothers for "Something About Mary"? Is it the "American Pie" guys? Is it Judd Apatow for his gross movies with sweet endings?
"Dirty Grandpa" is a perfect example of a filmmaker who, unsure of his comedy chops, goes for outrageous filth and threadbare cliches instead of reality-based characters.
The vulgarity is piled on here like a pastrami sandwich from Slyman's Deli. The script is carpet-bombed with dirty, genital sex talk in lieu of crafted comedy writing.
Just for good measure, the movie also skates as close as possible to the precipice of sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and other offensive material, then walks the jokes back with the lame "only kidding" excuse for its lazy, deplorable impulses.
Robert De Niro, who it seems would rather be on a movie set than breathe oxygen, plays Dick Kelly, the dirty grandpa with a secret past of the title. His wife of 40 years has just died, and he cajoles his soon-to-be-married, straight-laced, corporate-lawyer grandson (Zac Efron) into driving him to his condo in Boca Raton, Florida. Mindless sexual and drug- and booze-fueled hijinks ensue for the duration of the movie.
We've seen this theme a multitude of times before. And it's almost always been done a hundred times better than it is here.
The best, last time was the 2004 Alexander Payne film "Sideways," with Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church as two pals on a road trip in wine country just prior to Church's impending wedding.
"Sideways" had outrageous, comedic moments, including strategically placed bits of vulgarity, but the story had emotional intelligence and a big, warm heart. The similarly themed "Meet the Fockers," which had De Niro in a lead role, was also infinitely superior to this mess.
That movie is like Shakespeare compared with this piece of cookie-cutter, teen tripe.
To be fair, there are one or two emotional grace notes and three or four genuine laughs not involving the collision of genitalia. But those moments seem disingenuous and lost in the tidal wave of cheap, obscene gags and dialogue.
When it comes to sex comedies, there is a fine line between hilariously awkward and distasteful cringe-making. Director Dan Mazer never even attempts to walk that line. Cringe-making seems to be the goal. Mazer uses a bulldozer approach to present the crude, obvious, lowbrow humor here.
"Dirty Grandpa" rides that bulldozer early and often. And not very well.
The target audience for "Dirty Grandpa," with its spring-break theme, is presumably the teenage/college crowd. And it presumes they are all sex- and drug-crazed morons. Don't take your pre-teens. Don't take your parents. In fact, you probably shouldn't go at all.
That an actor of Robert De Niro's stature would sign on for this base form of "entertainment" is both baffling and depressing.
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