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Dirty Grandpa  (DVD)

6/10

Stars: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Aubrey Plaza, Zoey Deutch, Jason Mantzoukas, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Hough, Danny Glover, Adam Pally, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman

Director: Dan Mazer

It’s been 40 years since Taxi Driver earned him a well-deserved Oscar nomination and more than 40 years since The Godfather Part II brought him an Oscar, and confirmed Robert De Niro as one of the movie greats.

Comedy, however, has never really been De Niro’s forte as the Fockers films have so embarrassingly demonstrated.

But, to give De Niro his due, for once he appears to have nailed low comedy, albeit rather less subtly than a hippopotamus tap dancing in a telephone box, with his anything-and-everything-goes performance here.

We first meet him as the then bearded eponymous dirty grandpa at his wife’s funeral in Atlanta where he cons his uptight about-to-wed lawyer grandson Efron into driving him to Daytona.

Cue a tidal wave of unalloyed filth, verbal and visual, starting with Efron arriving to pick up his grandfather and finding De Niro – now clean-shaven – masturbating to porn on TV.

Alan Frank

USA 2016. UK Distributor: Lionsgate. Colour.
98 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 3, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 2, Swearing 3.

Review date: 12 Jun 2016