Dirty Grandpa

Dirty Grandpa is a 2016 American comedy film about a lawyer who drives his grandfather to Florida during spring break. The film was directed by Dan Mazer and written by John Phillips. It stars Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Aubrey Plaza, and Zoey Deutch.

Filming began on January 19, 2015, in Atlanta and ended on May 9. It was theatrically released on January 22, 2016, by Lionsgate and received scathing reviews from critics, but succeeded in the box office, grossing over $105 million worldwide.

Plot
Jason Kelly is a lawyer who works for his father. Jason's grandmother dies, and after the funeral, his Army veteran grandfather, Dick, asks Jason to drive him to Boca Raton, Florida. Jason is getting married to his controlling fiancée, Meredith, in one week, but decides to take his grandfather anyway.

On the way there, the two meet Jason's old photography classmate, Shadia, along with her friends Lenore and Bradley. Dick and Lenore are instantly attracted to each other. Dick tells the girls that he is a professor and that Jason is a photographer. They all go their separate ways, but Dick convinces Jason that they should meet the girls at Daytona Beach, Florida, because Dick wants to have sex with Lenore. The two go to a golf course, where Dick flirts with two women.

At Daytona Beach, they meet up with the girls and the girls' friends, Cody and Brah, with whom they compete in beer chugging. That night, a drunk Jason, wearing nothing but a Hornet fanny pack, parties and smokes crack cocaine that he gets from a drug dealer named Pam. He steals a motorcycle and wakes up the next day on the beach. During an awkward FaceTime with Meredith, a boy grabs the fanny pack and takes it off; his father suspects Jason of being a pervert and calls the police, who promptly arrest Jason. Dick bails him out, and the two visit Dick's old Army friend in a nursing home. They meet the girls again and enter a flexing contest with Cody and Brah; when they lose, Dick alters a T-shirt cannon to fire a beer can at the winning duo, hospitalizing them and stay at their place. After Dick reveals to Jason that he was a member of the Special Forces, the two go to a nightclub with the girls. Dick gets into a fight with some men after they bully Bradley for his homosexuality. The next day, Jason goes to a protest with Shadia and she tells him that she is leaving soon and going to live on a ship for a year.

That night, Jason plans on telling Shadia who he really is, but before he can, Cody does an online search on him and tells Shadia that Jason is already engaged. Jason then gets caught with drugs and is thrown into jail again. The next day, Dick bails him out and tells Jason that his real reason for the trip was to convince Jason not to go through with the wedding. Jason leaves Dick and drives back home.

During his wedding rehearsal, Dick hacks into the computer system, revealing embarrassing photos of Jason during the party. Jason says that he cannot marry Meredith, who reveals that she had an affair. He, Dick, and Pam use Pam's ice cream truck to catch up with the bus that Shadia is on as she is leaving. Jason and Shadia kiss, and he gets on the bus with her. Dick goes to his house in Boca Raton and finds Lenore there waiting for him, and they have sex. Dick and Lenore get married and have a baby boy, and Jason and Shadia are named the godparents.

Cast

 * Robert De Niro as Richard "Dick" Kelly, Jason's grandfather
 * Zac Efron as Jason Kelly
 * Aubrey Plaza as Lenore, Shadia's best friend
 * Zoey Deutch as Shadia
 * Julianne Hough as Meredith Goldstein, Jason's fiancée
 * Dermot Mulroney as David Kelly, Jason's father and Dick's son
 * Jason Mantzoukas as Pam
 * Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman as Bradley, Shadia and Lenore's effeminate male friend
 * Jake Picking as Cody
 * Michael Hudson as Brah
 * Adam Pally as Nick
 * Henry Zebrowski as Officer Gary Reiter
 * Mo Collins as Officer Jean Finch
 * Danny Glover as Stinky
 * Brandon Mychal Smith as Tyrone

Production
The film's script was featured in the 2011 edition of the Black List, an annual listings of well received but unproduced scripts in circulation. Prior to De Niro's casting, Jeff Bridges and Michael Douglas were both considered for the starring role.

De Niro's casting along with that of Zac Efron was confirmed September 2014. Zoey Deutch joined as the female lead, followed that January by the casting of Adam Pally and Aubrey Plaza. Plaza said that she was inspired by the role because it was different from the characters she normally played, and was also inspired by the fact that the role let her engage in physical comedy.

Filming
Principal photography began in Atlanta, Georgia on January 5, 2015. The cast, including Julianne Hough, was spotted filming in Atlanta on January 12. On January 14 and 16, Efron, De Niro, Plaza, and Deutch were spotted filming in Marietta, Georgia. On January 20, De Niro, Efron, Mantzoukas, and Mulroney were filming in an ice cream truck. On February 4, filming took place in McDonough. On February 4, De Niro and Efron were spotted filming. On February 9–10, filming took place at The Grand Atrium at 200 Peachtree in Atlanta. Preliminary shooting of the film ended on February 13, 2015, in Hampton, Georgia.

After filming officially ended, it was again scheduled to resume from April 27 to May 5, with the cast and crew filming spring break scenes on Tybee Island, Georgia. On April 27, filming resumed, with Efron preparing for his scenes. Production officially ended on May 9, 2015.

Release
On October 29, 2015, Lionsgate released the film's first poster and trailer. The first poster was a parody of the poster for Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate.

The film was initially set for a Christmas 2015 release, but was pushed to an August 16, 2016 date. It was then brought up to February 26, 2016, before finally being moved to January 22, 2016.

Box office
The film was released in North America on January 22, 2016, alongside The 5th Wave and The Boy, and was projected to gross $10–13 million from 2,912 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $4.3 million on its first day and went on to debut to $11.1 million, finishing 4th at the box office.

Dirty Grandpa grossed $35.5 million in the United States and Canada and $69.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $105.2 million, against a production budget of $25 million.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 12% based on 128 reviews and an average rating of 2.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Like a Werther's Original dropped down a sewer drain, Dirty Grandpa represents the careless fumbling of a classic talent that once brought pleasure to millions." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 21 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Richard Roeper gave the film zero stars, writing, "If Dirty Grandpa isn't the worst movie of 2016, I have some serious cinematic torture in my near future." Uproxx critic Mike Ryan, who described the film as "a very disturbing and difficult movie to watch", judged it as the worst he has both seen and reviewed. Glenn Kenny wrote: "The movie is so incredibly consistent in failing to land an honest laugh that about an hour into it, its not being funny becomes laughable."

Mark Kermode, on his BBC Radio 5 Live show (Kermode and Mayo's Film Review), said, "after Dirty Grandpa I did feel genuinely unclean, I wanted to go and have a shower, because it's just so revolting. Somewhere in hell there is a multiplex playing this on a double bill, with Movie 43 and Entourage." He would later go on to brand it his least favorite film of 2016.

Home media
Dirty Grandpa received a DVD and Blu-ray release on May 17, 2016. The Blu-ray edition featured an unrated version of the film, including an audio commentary, a making-of, a gag reel, and three featurettes. Dirty Grandpa was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray on June 12 2018.