Dicks The Musical: Half-cocked Spoof Fails to Rise to the Occasion

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C+

There comes a time when all film festival darlings must leave the perennial nest and the comfort and safety of a built-in audience thrilled to be first, thrilled for something fresh, thrilled to be present for the new and irreverent, and make its way into the wider world. Dicks: The Musical is that film.

It was an unmitigated hit at this year’s TIFF. But like 2014’s curiously celebrated and awarded Bang, Bang, Baby, which surfaced out of TIFF several years before, this film toys with genres and styles and gives in freely to high-arched performances and incredulous situations with very little payoff.

Read our interview with the stars of Dicks: The Musical

I don’t imagine Dicks: The Musical will survive in the commercial market for long. The film is broad, campy, audacious and arrives with high expectations. But Dicks ultimately disappoints — and the inherent joke that goes with that line should not pass underappreciated. The title is the joke. But it’s a joke that doesn’t get as much play as it should.

It's reasonable to expect more from director and writer Larry Charles, who directed and scripted Borat (2006) and episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Charles leaps over telling a story about two jerks who learn to become better people, although that kind of happens. Instead, actors Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp have composed a jokey, song-filled screenplay that lowers the bar on who gets in on the sexual-fluidity revolution.

The story is loosely based on The Parent Trap. Craig (Sharp) and Trevor (Jackson) are arrogant, womanizing braggard jerks who are competing salesmen. These men are such uber-heterosexuals, they are destined for some kind of eclipse of identity.

That eclipse begins when they discover they are identical twins separated at birth. One was raised by their flamboyant father (Nathan Lane), the other by their eccentric, oddball mother (Megan Mullally). Now the men (flamboyant, eccentric, oddballs themselves) set out to reunite their parents so they can finally be a family. But the plot is dropped midway through the film in favour of celebrating sexual freedom in all its variations.

None of this is bad, judging by the laughter of the packed house I saw it with at TIFF. The story eventually boils down to a free-for-all as if the whole process of making and being in a movie is a spontaneous lark filled with happy accidents.

Those who find solace in the craziness of Dicks: The Musical are likely to be stunned, if not outraged, by my lack of ability to play along.

I am reminded of a response I got after writing a review for the gawd awful (suitable words summing up the film) Bullets of Justice in 2019. I only saw Bullets of Justice at home, so could not relate to the feedback received by one disgruntled reader who saw it at a festival which, according to the complainant, was lauded and applauded by the entire audience, and was “one of the best films” he’s seen.

So good, says the writer, that “he went home and researched the director.” As did I, and as far as research assignments go. Not a lot of effort is needed to research Bullets of Justice.

Dicks: The Musical has moments to enjoy, flashes of ingenuity, and one number that stands out for me at least (though others have begged to differ). Ultimately, Dicks: The Musical is not a flop, but it doesn’t quite rise to the occasion.

Dicks: The Musical. Directed by Larry Charles. Written by Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp. Starring Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, Meagan Mullally, Nathan Lane, Megan Thee Stallion, and Bowen Yang. In select theatres October 20.