Dicks the Musical review: Larry Charles’ demented NSFW head-scratcher

Avid Saturday Night Live viewers know that the 12:50 am slot is where the show really gets weird. Right before the episode wraps up, SNL slots in the weirdest sketch of the night; if people are still watching by that point, they’re likely to go along for whatever far-out premise the writers can think of.

Larry Charles has now taken that WTF late-night energy as far as it can likely go with Dicks: The Musical, a profoundly absurd new comedy now playing in theatres.

Charles (Borat, Seinfeld) is no stranger to cringe comedy, but seems to have made it his goal to push the envelope as far as possible with Dicks: the Musical. The film centres on Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson star as two long-lost twins who come together to band together to try and reunite their estranged parents (brilliantly played by Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally).

While the Parent Trap trope is well-established, leave it to Charles to add some insanity into the mix including caged mutants, completely unhinged performances from Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally, Bowen Yang as God, and a touch of incest to keep things lively.

Dicks repeatededly hits you over the head with how out-there and subversive it thinks it is, but the real fun of the film is in watching established actors like Nathan Lane playing out some of the most deranged and grotesque moments you’re likely to see in Hollywood production any time soon. The actors clearly know how insane all of this is, as the bloopers over the end credits demonstrate.

Yet for all its bluster, Dicks: The Musical is a mostly empty experience. The songs are completely unmemorable, and much of the humour feels beneath the cast (there’s a reoccurring joke about Megan Mullally’s character crashing her wheelchair). That said, it’s refreshing to have a Queer gross-out comedy like this in theatres, even if the execution doesn’t match the potential of all the talent in front of and behind the camera.

If anything, the fact that Dicks: The Musical was actually produced and is currently playing at a multiplex near you may be the greatest joke of all.

Dicks: The Musical is in theatres now.