Dicks: The Musical (2023)
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Dicks: The Musical Movie Review
Dicks: The Musical is a 2023 musical comedy film directed by Larry Charles and starring John Sharp, Aaron Jackson, Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane. It’s a very fun, but problematic movie.
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“I’ll always be on top“
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Two self-obsessed businessmen discover they are long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric, divorced parents. Based on a Broadway musical, this film has a lot going for it until its highly troublesome ending. In what is a perfect example of a feature film ruined by just one scene, Dicks: The Musical is one of those movies that pose a very interesting conundrum – how do you rate and review such a film?
So, what we have here is a conclusion that sees two problematic elements brought in for no reason at all. The lesser issue was the lampooning of religion. Yes, it was very crude, immature and just plain frustrating, but at least I could get behind the message of God loving all people regardless of sexual orientation.
The more glaring issue was the inclusion of incest as we see the two twin brothers engage in various sexual activities before marrying each other. My problem with this element lies not in its presence, but in the glorification of it. Shows like ‘South Park’ and ‘Big Mouth’ would unquestionably include these issues, but they would still state that these relationships are objectively wrong.
This movie, however, is openly pro-incest in its stance, which was confounding to witness. It utterly tarnished the effect of the entire movie on me that until that point was bloody brilliant. What was even worse, and this is the discussion that needs to be had as soon as possible, is the fact that the vast majority of media and critics decided to either ignore this messaging or downright support it. Reading those reviews, I was horrified by the growing lack of basic decency and morality in today’s society where everything can suddenly be questioned and all behavior is acceptable, no matter how reprehensible it really is.
With that nastiness out of the way, I have to applaud the overall quality of this movie and just how incredible it was until they decided to shock audiences by tasteless jokes and immoral activism. If you disregard that objectionable ending, what you basically have here is one of the greatest musicals of all time. Yes, it was that amazing, which made that finale even more frustrating to witness.
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This is one of those wonderfully manic, camp and instant cunt movies where the craziness and goofiness were accentuated throughout. ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ is the picture most similar to this film’s level of insanity and absurdity. You have two sewage monster babies that Nathan Lane’s character cares for while Evelyn’s vagina is also a creature of its own. The former were particularly amusing and the movie was at its best when it embraced its campier and goofier elements.
Dicks: The Musical also functions phenomenally as both a musical and a comedy. The humor is on-point up until that ending. The lines of dialogue and especially the lyrics were consistently hilarious in their raunchiness, honesty and unabashed hypersexualization of everything. The jokes done at the expense of misogyny, homophobia and characters’ lunatic behavior were particularly effective.
The soundtrack is also quite impressive, at least for the most part as some songs fared worse than others. The highlights for me personally were all the songs sung by the film’s protagonists. Sharp and Jackson have excellent singing voices and the twins were consistently hilarious with their competitiveness and obvious closeted homosexuality. No One Understands and You Can’t Give Up were my absolute favorites as the catchiest and funniest songs of the bunch.
Megan Mullally was so well cast here, and although some of her lines were cringe-worthy, most were amusing and she excelled at both physical and campy humor. Nathan Lane was also a lot of fun and quite endearing, though his singing was the weakest of the bunch. But a lot of the praise should also be directed toward John Sharp and Aaron Jackson, who did not get a lot of attention from critics, but they were very entertaining, funny and memorably over-the-top. The movie’s production design, costumes, editing and directing are all terrific and the choreography of the music scenes was particularly outstanding.
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How do you rate and review a movie like Dicks: The Musical? This is the type of film that is simply impossible to rate, but eventually I decided to take into account the majority of its runtime rather than just that one scene. I am talking about its morally reprehensible ending that didn’t just include incest for no valid reason, but they went out of their way to support it. It is even more disturbing when you realize that the vast majority of critics have no problem with this pro-incest stance, which just goes to show how disreputable they’ve become. But had it not been for that objectionable ending, this easily would have been one of the best musicals of all time as it’s a very well crafted, wonderfully performed and highly entertaining movie that flies by how short and riveting it is. Its energy coupled with over-the-top campiness and goofiness made it an instant cult classic with the biting humor and catchy soundtrack being its highlights. It’s a shame, then, that it’s one of those films that were ruined with just one scene as it genuinely could have been incredible otherwise.
My Rating – 4
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