What was De Niro thinking? Has he no pride left? Will he appear in anything, do any movie for a buck?
Don't get me wrong. I've got no problems with raunchy. I loved Bad Santa, got some real laughs from Johnny Knoxville's far-funnier Bad Grandpa, but this is just lame, unfunny, derivative, poorly scripted studio slop
The basic premise is: boring uptight young lawyer, a week before his marriage to an obnoxious woman, is forced to go on a road trip with his obnoxious grandfather - sorry, lecherous but oh-so hilarious grandfather. On the way they bump into love-interest girl from the grandson's college days, back when he was an interesting arty photography student.
Get where this is going? And it doesn't diverge off track one bit, with 1950s studio formula joined by hangover/bridesmaid/current comedy cliché. But the jokes just fall flat. Note to writers: being crude doesn't automatically make it funny, it's the setup that makes comedy. Simply using the V-word isn't funny unless the context makes it so. Ditto showing a penis - the latest must-have in every me-too American adult (read juvenile) comedy right now.
But it just gets worse and worse. We've got the Apatow riffing from two cops, making it up as they go along, going on and on and on in unfunny scenes that are just tedious. The script then disintegrates into inanity, not even bothering to pay lip service to logic. But, hey, Grandpa is really a good guy, because he killed Iraqis or something, so that makes his obnoxious behavior OK?
Dumb, lame, juvenile - I'm running out of adjectives, just as this script ran out of credibility after 15 minutes, if indeed there was a script, because there certainly wasn't any new ideas or real laughs.
Don't get me wrong. I've got no problems with raunchy. I loved Bad Santa, got some real laughs from Johnny Knoxville's far-funnier Bad Grandpa, but this is just lame, unfunny, derivative, poorly scripted studio slop
The basic premise is: boring uptight young lawyer, a week before his marriage to an obnoxious woman, is forced to go on a road trip with his obnoxious grandfather - sorry, lecherous but oh-so hilarious grandfather. On the way they bump into love-interest girl from the grandson's college days, back when he was an interesting arty photography student.
Get where this is going? And it doesn't diverge off track one bit, with 1950s studio formula joined by hangover/bridesmaid/current comedy cliché. But the jokes just fall flat. Note to writers: being crude doesn't automatically make it funny, it's the setup that makes comedy. Simply using the V-word isn't funny unless the context makes it so. Ditto showing a penis - the latest must-have in every me-too American adult (read juvenile) comedy right now.
But it just gets worse and worse. We've got the Apatow riffing from two cops, making it up as they go along, going on and on and on in unfunny scenes that are just tedious. The script then disintegrates into inanity, not even bothering to pay lip service to logic. But, hey, Grandpa is really a good guy, because he killed Iraqis or something, so that makes his obnoxious behavior OK?
Dumb, lame, juvenile - I'm running out of adjectives, just as this script ran out of credibility after 15 minutes, if indeed there was a script, because there certainly wasn't any new ideas or real laughs.