Dirty Grandpa

This review may contain spoilers!

At this point comedy films don't care, we have reached the seedy, raunchy bottom of the barrel. I would give Dirty Grandpa a 4/10.

This film for the most part is quite funny, a lot of the comedy is grounded in having no limits and being unafraid to use the most offensive material possible. The soundtrack for this film was another amazing display of comedy, the songs used really heightened scenes and made them that much more entertaining.

Robert De Niro, who played Dick Kelly, is completely different to any other role he has ever done in this film; I enjoyed that he could land the senseless comedy while also delivering some great insightful moments in places. Zac Efron, who played Jason Kelly, was quite convincing as the rigid timid and boring lawyer; it was nice to see his character grow and realise how unhappy he was in the life he was living. Aubrey Plaza, who played Lenore, had some of the best line delivery in the film; Plaza's sex scene with De Niro is probably the funniest scene of the film. Dermot Mulroney, who played David Kelly, was a really good authoritative and controlling figure in this film; I liked that he had some closure with De Niro at the end of the film. Adam Pally, who played Cousin Nick, was landing some exceptionally random and hilarious scenes in this film; I loved Pally role and his performance. Henry Zebrowski, who played Officer Reiter, was a really fun nonsensical character; I liked the sarcastic tone of his role and the run joke that he got along with the local drug dealer.

However the best performance came from Jason Mantzoukas, who played Tan Pam. I love comedic consistency when it's funny and Mantzoukas is constantly delivering brilliant jokes throughout the film. He is, in my mind, easily the funniest actor of the film. I just loved the absurdity of his role as local drug dealer operating out of a souvenir shop; it just sparked some great lines and interesting character interactions throughout the film.

The plot for this film is that Robert De Niro wants to have sex now that his wife has died, that is the whole plot. I have to be honest it's a cheap story and you know what you're signing up for going into this film so you can't expect much there. However worse than De Niro's story is the Efron subplots. You don't care that Efron is getting married in this film, that entire storyline feels redundant the minute De Niro's story takes over, and in the Efron/Deutch romantic subplot you get kinda bored because there is absolutely nothing there at all. I also felt that the film aimed to try and cram every type of joke into it's script, while this paid off most of the time you did get left with some awful, cringeworthy or offensive material in other scenes. At the end of the day this film was poorly constructed and didn't really boast a plot at all so the pacing was quite shocking. The cinematography was very classic of most comedies, bland and lacking imagination. The editing was filled with weak transitions and cuts, this really served to fail the pacing of the film even more.

Zoey Deutch, who played Shadia, was one of the most redundant characters of the film; her entire romance with Efron felt forced and bland. Julianne Hough, who played Meredith, wasn't a character you really cared about; she was never given much attention as an actual character so just felt like more of an obstacle. Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, who played Bradley, had no screen presence at all in this film; I also didn't like that his character's entire purpose was to be ridiculed for being gay I thought that was very weak writing. Brandon Mychal Smith, who played Tyrone, could not play an intimidating character to save himself; worse than that his line delivery was some of the worst out of anyone in the film. Jake Picking and Michael Hudson, who played Cody and Brah, were awful antagonists in this film; there were just beefcakes with flimsy character motivation at the end of the day. Mo Collins, who played Officer Finch, didn't feel really necessary next to Zebrowski's performance; I thougt she really failed to deliver an entertaining performance alongside her co-stars. Danny Glover, who played Stinky, gave what was a weak and not very interesting cameo in this film; Glover's performance was very forgettable and not at all funny.