Most of the time you can find the thin line between raunchy and just plain stupid. While watching Dirty Grandpa (a distinct title that is very well earned) I struggled to find the balance. I mean we have Robert De Niro (a veteran) and Zac Efron (the heartthrob) taking aim at some of the most crude infested laughs I haven’t seen since this past summer. The story which follows Jason (Efron) taking his recently widowed grandfather Dick Kelly (De Niro) cross country to Daytona Beach, Florida where the two get into some mismatched hijinks, one which involves the ‘dirty’ grandpa getting into a brawl with some local thugs, turning a seemingly normal t-shirt launcher into a highly lethal beer can tranquilizer, and Jason getting high off crack while doing the macarena naked. ALL so Dick Kelly can get laid.

Most of this shtick can’t be unseen, and I never thought I would see the day when De Niro sold himself out for ill intended dick/minority jokes. Jokes, I’m afraid, that have been told at least sixteen dozen different times from other well intentioned comedies. It would be one thing if we could empathize with Dick for the loss of his wife, yet he hardly shows any remorse. But then again when you haven’t had sex in 15 years, you want to get back in the saddle. Most of the side line gimmicks don’t play out – at all. There is a severely underdeveloped relationship that brews between Jason and this girl Shadia (Zoey Deutch) that feels more rushed than believable. THEN the writers expect us to buy that Dick Kelly was a covert operative specialist in the army..it’s a little too overstuffed for my taste at that point. Aubrey Plaza does steal some laughs with her old-man sex craving “can-do” attitude. Which serves as an amusing running gag for the entire film between her and Dick. While on the other hand Julianne Hough is a walking talking stereotype in full force – WHO in their right mind would want to marry someone as controlling and conniving as her..apparently Jason!

That’s not to say Dirty Grandpa doesn’t at least get a little praise for its overall efforts. There’s just something about Robert De Niro standing on stage singing a song with many expletives towards black people that seemed (in a weird way) politically correct for all the wrong reasons. Even an earlier scene where Jason catches his grandfather relieving himself to some adult movies left me whimpering. But with every solid laugh comes an endless twenty minutes of sloppy material (let’s draw a male appendage on someone’s face because that hasn’t been done before) or unnecessary plot points (did I mention that relationship with Shadia, something that kind of just fell out of the sky and landed right smack dab in the middle of this film). If not for De Niro and his willingness to put it all on display I probably would have been more bored than I grew accustomed too. Dirty Grandpa does serve a purpose but at the cost of a script that could have used just a little tune up. C