What begins as a crass but kinda cute take on The Parent Trap swiftly descends into the most offensive movie I’ve seen in years.
I appreciate that the intention is to shock the audience into laughter, in a story written by and starring two gay men whose MO is to be as outlandish as possible. Furthermore, Dicks’ director, Larry Charles, is himself renowned for TV’s brilliant squirm-fest Curb Your Enthusiasm and the ridiculous Borat movies.
But while Dicks: The Musical, adapted from the off-Broadway musical F***ing Identical Twins by Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson (who also write and star here) throws a lot of shock-value at the screen in its attempt to scandalise, most of it just doesn’t stick.
Sharp and Jackson play not-really-identical twins Craig and Trevor who discover by chance that they have been next-door neighbours and top-performing sales agents living parallel lives of OTT heterosexual promiscuity.
They trick their estranged parents into reconnecting (strong performances from musical theatre legend Nathan Lane and Will & Grace’s Megan Mullally with the wispy voice), in the hope that the now-grown men can have the “real family” they’ve both always wanted.
The sets look low-budget and the supporting cast’s stage business is second rate, but the musical aspect is, somewhat surprisingly, the film’s strong suit.
The beautifully melodic original music (written by Sharp, Jackson and composer Karl Saint Lucy) boasts catchy show-tunes and fabulous singing from all four leads. There’s even a cameo by rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who adds her own over-the-top flavour as the hapless men’s staunch female boss.
But the lyrical crassness gets tired pretty quickly, as dialogue goes from bawdy and silly to downright disgusting. What starts as a Naked Gun-esque parody of musicals and theatrical love stories soon switches gear in an attempt to get as many gasps and groans from the audience as you’d expect from a pair of caged puppet creatures called “the Sewer Boys”, and a woman who keeps her vagina in her handbag.
In a film narrated by a camp, glittery God, the final act reaches its lowest depths as the audience is enticed into laughing about incest and singing karaoke along to low-level blasphemy.
At least, unlike the titular members boasted about in every scene, at 86 minutes the movie itself is mercifully short.
Rating out of 5: ★½
Dicks: The Musical is in cinemas now.
