There might not be enough words in the English language to describe “Dicks: The Musical” (A24), but here are just a few: offensive, vulgar, sophomoric, tasteless, and atrocity.
A movie adaptation of the stage musical Fucking Identical Twins by Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson (who also play the titular lead roles), it desperately wants to be as irreverent as a Trey Parker and Matt Stone vehicle but just ends up being irrelevant.
Craig (Josh Sharp) and Trevor (Aaron Jackson) are the kind of entitled, misogynistic millennial dicks we all try to avoid in the workplace, at family functions, and in polite society. We’re supposed to find their obnoxious personalities amusing, but the laughs are few and far between.
At work, Craig and Trevor are briefly tied for top salesmen at the Vroomba parts company, where their boss Gloria (scene stealer Megan Thee Stallion who emerges as the best thing about “Dicks”) rules the roost with an iron fist adorned with acrylic nails. When they discover that they are actually twins, separated at birth, each raised by single parents Evelyn (Megan Mullally) and Harris (Nathan Lane), they set aside their competitive natures and turn their attention to reuniting their mother and father.
Here is where “Dicks” manages to go from bad to worse. Pretending to be the other (an unfortunate and endless riff on “The Prince and the Pauper” and “The Parent Trap”), they get better acquainted, each with the parent who didn’t raise them. Evelyn, in a motorized wheelchair, is a kook with unkempt hair, a speech impediment, and the ultimate in vaginal atrophy – it simply fell off! Harris is a day-drinking queen at the mercy of a pair of caged sewer boys (please don’t ask) whom he feeds by spitting chewed-up cold cuts into their mouths (I said, don’t ask).
None of this is enough to stop the twins from their plan to get Evelyn and Harris back together, so they can have the family they want. Aside from the fact that Harris is gay and has no interest in being with a woman, additional conflicts arise, including a feud between the twins and an unplanned visit to the sewer system below the city. As if that isn’t enough to make your stomach churn, the twins realize they are in love with each other and, after having sex, have a wedding ceremony presided over by God (Bowen Yang), who is gay and snorts coke. Just what Christian nationalists need to fuel their ongoing campaign against the LGBTQ community.
“Dicks” director Larry Charles’ previous films “Brüno” and “Borat!” feel like Don Bluth-level cartoons in comparison to this train wreck. How anyone expected two basically unknown performers such as Sharp and Jackson to carry this kind of project is a mystery. The musical numbers are forgettable. The talent, with the exception of Megan Thee Stallion who needed more screen time, is completely wasted, making this the worst movie musical since “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” or “The Greatest Showman,” for that matter.
Rating: F