This not the Grandpa you Remember
Dirty Grandpa
Credits
Dirty Grandpa: “R“ (1 h. 42 min.)
Starring: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Zoey Deutch, Dermot Mulroney, Aubrey Plaza
Directed by: Dan Mazer
Teach your children
As a parent there are films to which you go to with your children (yes, even your adult children) and then there are films that you really never want to go to and sit next to your (yes even adult) children. This is a tidbit of wisdom that we learned from our own father back when we were in our 20s. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that we apparently never actually learned, as recently we took our own 21-year-old daughter to see Dirty Grandpa, a film that one should never see in the company of their (even adult) children.
Teach them well
Let us be very clear about this, Dirty Grandpa — while a hysterically funny film — is not one you want to go to see with your 21-year-old daughter.
Only we did.
Sigh.
Dirty Grandpa Trailer
The Story
The story is that the wife of Dick Kelly (De Niro) passed away after 40 years of marriage, and now dick ostensibly wants his favorite grandson, Jason (Efron) to drive him from Atlanta to Miami. Now you see, Dick loved his wife and was a faithful husband, but on her deathbed, she told him to get back out there and live his life to the fullest, which is something he wants to do. So, his plan to have Jason drive him to Miami is merely a ruse, as what he really wants to do is (in Dick’s own words) is “F----! F----! F----!” (Told you that you don’t want to take your daughter). What makes this buddy road trip even funnier is that Jason is well on his way to being re-molded by his dad, Dick’s son David (Mulroney), into an uptight corporate lawyer that handles, well, what most of us would consider boring legal stuff.
Hanging w/Grandpa
On the road
Now, a couple of days before his wedding to an overly uptight, repressive and controlling woman, Jason finds himself driving his very randy grandfather to Florida, only on the way, they meet a trio of college students; Shadia, Lenore, and Tyrone (Deutch, Plaza, and Smith). As it turns out, Shadia used to be a classmate of Jason (before he switched his major from photography to law) and Lenore totally wants to bang Dick, and they convince Dick (exuberantly) and Jason (reluctantly) to change their plans and head to Spring break in Fort Lauderdale where all sorts of hijinks ensue, including wild partying, excessive ingestion of alcohol, drug use, and, well, yes, sex. Oh, and as they travel further into their trip, Jason loosens up more and more and begins — under the tutelage of his grandfather — to embrace his former self. Also, we begin to discover that perhaps (just perhaps) Grandpa Dick isn’t quite who Jason (and David) remember him to have been.
Spring break
a very funny film
Other than all of the above, the film is a great big pile of scatological humor, inappropriate behavior, foul language, and bitingly satiric and comedic observations (a local shop-owner and drug dealer in Fort Lauderdale at one points pulls out a gun and randomly fires it in his shop startling Jason. The shop owner (who seems to have some universal “get out of jail free” card with the local cops blithely looks at Jason and says, “It’s Florida, the who place is an open gun range.” The film is loud, brash, and hilariously funny, and so totally different than most of the De Niro films you’ve ever seen (more akin to a Seth Rogen farce), which is precisely why it was so entertaining.
The girls of Spring Break
© 2016 Robert J Sodaro