Written by: Aaron Jackson & Josh Sharp
Starring: Megan Mullally, Megan Thee Stallion, Bowen Yang, Nathan Lane, Aaron Jackson
Rating: [2/5]
Shock value certainly has its place in storytelling when sprinkled in at the right time and place. It can provide a jolt when necessary and change the dynamic, but the key word in the previous sentence is “sprinkled.” When a film serves solely to act as shock value such like Dicks: The Musical it ceases to add anything beneficial to the story, but it shows not much under the surface and ultimately making for a tiring viewing experience.
Craig (Josh Sharp) and Trevor (Aaron Jackson) both work as salesmen for the same company and have pretty much the same attitude towards life in the way they are womanizers and misogynistic. They did not realize, however, until they met, is that they are identical twins who were separated at birth. With this newfound knowledge, they plan to bring their parents back together.
One could easily describe Dicks: The Musical as a bastardized and vulgar recreation of The Parent Trap. Certainly a fun idea for anyone who would be in the mood for such a thing, and this film has plenty of promise. If the trailer indicated anything, it certainly communicated this film would operate unlike most movies out in the marketplace today. It promises a particular weirdness and humor that would make it refreshing and something different to experience, and it certainly delivered on that front but far too much of it.
Beginning with a musical number that sets the stage for these two characters, their back and forth at the onset where they vigorously compete with each other and try to impress their boss Gloria (Megan Thee Stallion) serves where this film operates at its highest high. It displays Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson off their greatest moments in these characters, as they play into what makes these two characters quite despicable in the way they treat everyone else around them. Everything here explains aplenty, but the film takes quite the nosedive when the main plot of them trying to get their family together again just does not work.
As blasphemous as it feels to say, but when Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane enter the story as the parents to these twins, this film disastrously falls apart. They play these larger-than-life characters that feel as if they do not exist in this world, and it made every scene they were included within this film quite unbearable. It made me yearn to see the twins back in the office competing with each other and Gloria bossing them around, compared to these never-ending scenes of grating nonsense these two actors had to portray. None of this works and not much of it gets better as the film progresses. Each of these two actors have enjoyed plenty of notoriety for what they have accomplished in the past, but these roles did them no favors and everything with them just felt forced and the humor made me want to exit this viewing experience.
Leaning into the humor employed after the first act of the film felt just far too much like the creative team behind this film trying to provoke its audience with just how vulgar they could get with their comedy. The laughter from my end ceased and eye-rolling began as every additional attempt to shock the audience felt far too unearned and intentionality detached from the purpose of the narrative but rather searching for ways to get the audience to recoil at the humor at hand, which showed this film really did not have much substance to begin with considering they had to add this much nonsense in a story barely reaching 90 minutes. It had nothing much to work with and by the time it reached its conclusion I felt glad it was finally over.
Perhaps an audience exists for whatever Dicks: The Musical sought to accomplish, but I certainly did not fit within it. While initially having some fun with what this narrative proposed and set up, it quickly disintegrated into tedious nonsense that truly served no other purpose than to have the audience raise their eyebrows. They had to at least attach all of this to something to take away from the experience, but that certainly did not take place here.
Films with Josh 
