Dicks: The Musical

Overview

When it starred Lindsay Lohan (Falling for Christmas) making her film debut in dual roles in the late 90s, and when Hayley Mills (The Wheel of Time) was doing double duty back in the 60s as well, The Parent Trap told of identical twins who were separated at birth when their mother and father divorced. Each parent gained custody of a baby, then raised the child separately. Never did the sisters cross paths until a summer camp years later, where they realised their connection, then hatched a plan to reunite their family by posing as each other back home. The tale springs from the page, with German novel Lisa and Lottie also inspiring adaptations in its homeland, Japan, the UK, India and Iran. The Olsen twins' It Takes Two owes it a debt, too. But there's never been a version of this story like Josh Sharp (Search Party) and Aaron Jackson's (Broad City) iteration, as first seen onstage in Fucking Identical Twins and now in cinemas as Dicks: The Musical.

So absurdly its own ridiculous, raucous, irreverent and raunchy thing, calling Dicks: The Musical exuberantly unhinged — or anything, really — doesn't do it justice. Before this A24 release brought its sibling antics to the big screen with singing, dancing, Megan Mullally (Party Down) and Nathan Lane (Beau Is Afraid) as its long-split parents, Borat and Brüno director Larry Charles behind the camera, Brisbane-born Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang as drama-loving gay God and Megan Thee Stallion busting out a mid-movie tune, Fucking Identical Twins was a two-man production that premiered in 2014 to must-see success. Created at Upright Citizens Brigade, which was co-founded by Amy Poehler (Moxie), the then half-an-hour affair first filled a basement and now rises to share its delirium with the film-watching world. Leading the way in every guise: Sharp and Jackson, who definitely aren't twins let alone brothers, don't look a thing alike, yet know how to take audiences on a helluva wild ride.

Sharp's Craig and Jackson's Trevor do have plenty in common in Dicks: The Musical's narrative, however, with both slick salesman slinging Vroomba vacuum parts who could slide into American Psycho, dripping with toxic alpha-male pride, bragging about their heterosexual prowess and, despite their professional successes and ample posturing, plagued by loneliness. As the feature kicks into gear, they're also new colleagues after their respective offices merge, which they're not initially happy about. Then the instant jostling to be seen as the company's top seller gives way to recognition when they glean that they're actually identical twins. Both yearning for the childhood with two parents and a brother that they missed, they plot to bring their mother Evelyn (Mullally) and father Harris (Lane) back together. But when Craig poses as Trevor, he doesn't know that their dad is obsessed with two creatures that he calls Sewer Boys, and has also recently come out. And when Trevor pretends to be Craig, he no idea that their mum doesn't leave the house or has a lusty penchant for inanimate objects.

From the moment that Dicks: The Musical begins with a title card explaining that its two gay writers and stars are playing straight men in the movie, and also espousing their bravery for doing to, there's no room for mistaking Sharp and Jackson's film for anything but a gleefully OTT satire. Subtlety has no room when the first image that the feature shows is the faces of its orgasming protagonists. Nuance has no place when the picture's initial musical number is about having massive penises, as well as separate mansions for sex and masturbation, either. While writing both Fucking Identical Twins and Dicks: The Musical, if Sharp and Jackson — plus composers Karl Saint Lucy (returning from the stage) and Marius de Vries (Navalny) — were trying to one-up each scene, tune and joke with the next, it wouldn't come as a shock. Before the flick is out, there'll be genitals kept in a handbag, other than when they're flying, for instance. And those diaper-wearing mutants from below that even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would run from? Resembling demonic gremlins, with one voiced by SpongeBob SquarePants' Tom Kenny (so, yes, SpongeBob himself), they're fed regurgitated food from Harris like baby birds.

Performative masculinity might be the obvious target, and a worthy one, but barbs are clearly and eagerly fired in other directions. Dicks: The Musical's own distributor isn't safe. Neither is queer culture, the film's second main subject for parody; "Lube is the word," one of the feature's gag posters for faux Broadway shows states (My Queer Lady and The Gay Odd Couple are others) in what might be the movie's tamest joke. There's a throw-it-all-in vibe to Dicks: The Musical, then, where that one-upping quest frequently seems as if it's driving the flick above all else. Dicks: The Musical only spans 86 minutes, but even viewers unfamiliar with Fucking Identical Twins will be able to spot how well the material would've worked at a third of that length — and, as a result, how forceful much of the movie can be, and not just because that's exactly what Sharp, Jackson and their cast are giving in every single moment.

That said, when a comedy turns its outrageousness up to 111, it needs one thing first and foremost: committed players. Dicks: The Musical's actors don't even dream of holding back and couldn't have if they wanted to — that version wouldn't have made it to fruition. There was no chance of Sharp and Jackson not investing their all in their film debut, of course, or in bringing their creation to cinemas, just as they've done with the script's constant array of off-kilter and iconoclastic gags. Megan Thee Stallion not only steals her office-bound scenes, but also ensures that her tune 'Out Alpha the Alpha' is the highlight of the musical numbers. Yang is perfection. Lane and Mullally expectedly prove genius casting moves, because who else would anyone want to sing about critters from the deep drinking blood for fun and winking nipples — and with feeling?

Surreal, silly, aiming for scandalous, always throwing another provocative surprise the audience's way, emphasising loving people (and Sewer Boys) for who they are above all else: that's the Dicks: The Musical approach. Still, it's apt that Charles energetically splashes an artificial look across the screen. Making the bit seem genuine might be the tactic with most of his Sacha Baron Cohen-led fare (not The Dictator), and while helming episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it would've seen this film plummet down a grate. Accordingly, with its blatant sets and puppetry, at no point does Dicks: The Musical try to hide that this is a spoof world. There's a fabricated air overall, though; even when you're laughing, it's impossible not to spy the effort being expended like twins endeavouring to make a ploy a reality, this time on courting cult status.