The title is the tamest thing about ‘Dicks: The Musical’
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News
No, “Dicks: The Musical” isn’t about a bunch of guys named Richard. Rather, “Dicks” centers around two working stiffs, Trevor and Craig (Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp), rival salesmen at a vacuum cleaner supplier. Once the guys discover they’re long-lost identical twins, the siblings hatch a plan to reunite their parents and be granted the “normal” family they always wanted. The movie is basically Disney’s “The Parent Trap” recast as a raunchy gay musical, which is not a totally terrible idea. Somehow, the filmmakers waste a good opportunity.
I expected an irreverent, bawdy good time a la “The Great” on Hulu. But instead of clever absurdist humor, it’s an amalgamation of flying vaginas, diaper-wearing sewer creatures, and twincest. Director Larry Charles (“Borat”) tries—and fails—to make it continuously funny. Me, I like tasteless humor as much as the next person, but this …
The only saving grace is bleach-blond “SNL” star Bowen Yang as God, who narrates the flaccid affair clad in racy gold and silver lamé. He’s fabulous, as usual. The same can’t be said for the rest of the movie, which feels longer, at 86 minutes, than the three-and-a-half-hour Scorsese epic, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” playing in the theater next door.
In adapting their off-Broadway show, “F***ing Identical Twins,” Jackson and Sharp hit some high notes. The first number is a gleeful show tune with lyrics about Trevor and Craig’s huge egos and manhood. Megan Thee Stallion’s lady boss drops in for a mid-movie mic-drop, “Out-Alpha the Alpha,” where the rapper puts on a twerking clinic. Broadway heavyweights Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane are game for anything as the twins’ eccentric parents. She sings about her fallen lady parts, he’s “queer as a three-dollar bill,” and keeps Gollum-like “sewer boys” as pets.
The big problem with “Dicks” is Jackson and Sharp insist on returning to the same well of jokes about male and female genitalia, horniness, and homosexuality. They offer one absurd situation after the next without grounding it in an ounce of reality. There’s an inkling of emotion when Craig and Trevor sing about being misunderstood. But like most musicals, it’s a bunch of telling, with the songs filling in characters’ inner thoughts. You can’t shake the feeling that this whole kooky endeavor would work better as the 30-minute live theater it started as.
The grand finale is a showstopper, anchored by Yang, delivering the all-inclusive message: “All Love is Love.” It’s the moment of topical satire I’d been awaiting. But Jackson, Sharp, and company are obsessed with simply being crude, employing every cheap joke and disembodied vulva in the playbook. In its effort to be the naughtiest movie ever, the limp “Dicks” comes off as just another try-hard.
‘Dicks: The Musical’
Screened Oct. 12 at AMC Boston Common.
Rating: R for strong crude sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language, and brief drug use.
Cast: Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, Megan Mullally, Megan Thee Stallion, Bowen Yang and Nathan Lane
Director: Larry Charles
Writer: Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp
Running time: 86 minutes
Where to watch: In theaters
Grade: C
Boston Movie News 