Directed By Larry Charles

Starring – Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, Nathan Lane

The Plot – A pair of business rivals discover that they’re identical twins and decide to swap places in an attempt to trick their divorced parents to get back together.

Rated R for strong crude sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language and brief drug use.

Dicks: The Musical | Official Trailer HD | A24 – YouTube

POSITIVES

As gay representation has maintained a comfortable consistency in cinematic depiction, the walls of its carefully guarded artistic creators start to come down, bringing us the fearlessly unapologetic “Dicks: The Musical”, which is easily one of the more memorable engagements of the 2023 cinematic calendar. Most of this reason easily lends itself to Charles’ energetically expressive direction, which feels like it could easily exist in the same universes as those he helped pave in “Seinfeld” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, with caustic wit aimed at conservatives to show the audacity of their moral commitments. It’s not a political film, but one that errors on the side of spoofing, creating an indulging environment where anything can and often does happen, but beyond that one that the dynamic off-screen and on-screen duo of Sharp and Jackson take complete advantage of. As writers on the film, Sharp and Jackson seem to be paying homage to hook-up family comedies of the past age, like “The Parent Trap”, complete with grainy stock footage of New York City leading to some artistic transitions, but also a limitless potential in structure that allows them to pull out anything out of thin air, and one that gay audiences everywhere will value as something that captures the loud and proud distinctions of their personalities. In performance perks, the chemistry of these two is impeccable, both intentionally and unintentionally generating the blossoming chemistry between them that feels prominent even as on-screen twins, and when joined by memorable turns from Lane and Megan Mullaly, allows them to selflessly step aside to garner the greatest shine for their longtime veterans of the genre. Mullaly shines most, in my opinion, persisting visually incognito with make-up and prosthetics that seamlessly obscure her familiarity, but without ever downright sacrificing her ability to enhance the material, with an overwhelming element of vulnerability that she embraces to garner some impactful gags in the duration of the experience. Lastly, while the songs are plagued by one major element of interference that diminishes their appeal, not crediting their creativity would be a huge disservice, especially in the varying subject matters that conjure an unshakeable infectiousness with the cleverness of their chorus’. Because of such, the overzealousness of the abundance of personality distributed seamlessly by dual composers Marius De Vries and Karl Saint Lucy works best in the confines of the film’s many musical numbers, bringing to light the pageantry and poise of historical cinematic musicals, while also lyrically annihilating its audience with lethal wordplay that keeps its audience indulged.

NEGATIVES

Sometimes, a film can trip over its own execution, and in the case of “Dicks: The Musical”, there are some underwhelming decisions in its finished product that took too much of the momentum away from this bizarrely original concept. For starters, the material’s R-rated humor consistently comes across as forced and unnaturally materialized in the depths of the ensemble, which not only keeps it from maintaining freshness for the long-term of an 81 minute run time, with more comedic misfires than I care to admit, but also feels too crude to ever feel flattering, deducing gay humor to the worst of juvenile adolescence that we hoped had left the cinematic landscape by 2010. This is the biggest problem with the film crossing over into a mainstream appeal with the other side of the audience demographic, as the loudly crass and even occasionally obnoxious demeanor of its characters could easily alienate audiences who are overwhelmed by the extent of the imagery and talking points that are shocking for the sake of being shocking, and nothing else. As for that aforementioned run time, the film’s storytelling also feels conflicted by an abrupt pacing structure that constantly forces the developments to breeze by, sometimes with little to no time to let these reveals breathe with any kind of impact. This is most prominent during the film’s first act, where in the opening five minutes of the movie, these twin brothers meet for the first time, begin an inner-office rivalry, and hatch a plan to attempt to get their parents back together again. This also speaks volumes to the disjointed feel of the film’s structure, in which the first half of the movie feels involved in the lives of these siblings, but by the film’s second half has forcefully shifted entirely to the re-emerging love story of Lane and Mullaly’s respective characters, giving them a sense of two dejective half stories that don’t exactly converge cohesively as the same movie. Finally, while the film intentionally goes for the aspect of being a cheaply manufactured musical to mirror the maturity of its material, the editing and shot compositions frequently felt improper to the integrity of what the scenes called for. This is especially the case with latter, which often feels out of place for the meaningful imagery that it’s trying to capture, leaving to unflattering examples of depiction that ocularly require more effort than necessary to interpret, and when combined with the lack of flow or momentum attained in these abrupt edits that only further emphasize the aforementioned rushed execution, leads to such an artistically jarring presentation that become more tedious with each passing scene.

OVERALL
Like the gay community it markets itself towards, “Dicks: The Musical” is loud, proud and endowed with loads of exaggerated personality, but in cinematic form, too much of a good thing grows tedious, and soon shock becomes stock in the confines of redundancy. Despite energetically eager performances from everyone assembled, as well as occasionally catchy musical numbers, A24’s first delve into musical territory is marred by rushed execution and forced shock humor of the most juvenille variety, cementing an alienating engagement that depletes flacidly before our eyes.

My Grade: 5/10 or C-