Dicks: The Musical movie review (2023) – Roger Ebert

“Dicks: The Musical” is billed as the primary A24 musical and it’s going to be a troublesome opening act to comply with. A twisted style experiment that performs with sexuality, basic style tropes, and common lunacy, it’s half a film, however it’s so dedicated to its rebellious tone that it makes for a hell of a half. Reportedly a manufacturing that ran as a two-man stage present by its leads for years, director Larry Charles (“Borat”) and A24 have pulled this twisted story from the underground and delivered a movie that appears like a cult basic earlier than it’s even been launched. It’s obtained that go-for-broke vitality that defines comedies that engender extremely loyal followings. Some persons are going to die for it. Some individuals who can’t get on its wavelength are going to actively hate it. Think about me someplace within the center, impressed sufficient by the fearlessness to understand it whereas additionally wishing it had been expanded a bit extra past its free construction and skinny concepts. 

Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp play the title characters, Trevor and Craig, respectively, a pair of royal assholes who’ve been granted each privilege in life simply by being male, straight, white, and wealthy. They sing about how good their lives are however cover their loneliness, hoping to search out the households they by no means had rising up. You see, they’re equivalent twins (probably not, however simply go together with it) who have been separated at start. Reunited at a job the place they promote components—not precise machines, simply the components for them—they understand that they’re one another’s long-lost brothers, and so they devise a plan to reunite their dad and mom, performed fearlessly by Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane. Mullally’s Evelyn is a caricature of an previous kook who talks to her bric-a-brac and claims her genitalia actually got here to life and fell off just a few years in the past. If that’s not bizarre sufficient, Lane’s Harris sings about being homosexual now, and his love for a pair of puppets known as the Sewer Boys, hysterically analog creatures he discovered within the underground years in the past and now raises, feeds, and fears. It is a tough film to do the plot recap factor on. Simply belief me. Bowen Yang performs God. That most likely tells you every part you have to know.

“Dicks: The Musical” is clearly a “The Mother or father Lure” riff, however this one ain’t for youths. Jackson and Sharp are fairly good, leaning into each ridiculous idea within the movie. They completely promote the alpha male obnoxiousness of Trevor and Craig to start out, however get even funnier once they flip to disclose their loneliness and go undercover to reunite their actually odd dad and mom. To say they commit can be an understatement, and there’s one thing about watching performers keen to go all-in—even when a joke doesn’t land, one thing is entrancing concerning the high-wire act of those performances. Having mentioned that, I needed “Dicks: The Musical” didn’t repeat itself so usually—in the event you like Mullally’s p*ssy joke, don’t fret, you’ll hear it a bunch extra occasions, and the Sewer Boys bit get previous earlier than it hits its weird endpoint. It has a lot vitality in its finest scenes that one needs it discovered different locations to spend it by way of storytelling.

Imagine it or not, the music itself helps. In addition to a bit by Megan Thee Stallion that feels overproduced in comparison with the remainder of the film, the music right here kinda guidelines. It most likely helped to have Marius de Vries because the music producer, given his pedigree that features “La La Land,” “Moulin Rouge!,” and “Romeo + Juliet.” The musical numbers are legitimately well-done—humorous, witty, and typically even transferring. Jackson and Sharp are at their finest when projecting ridiculous lyrics into one another’s faces, and Lane & Mullally are having an absolute blast.