Gangsters, villains, and bad guys in general. Nobody plays them with more intensity and complexity than Robert De Niro. And, in over 50 years, nobody does it better.
More recently, he's added comedy to his repertoire and, surprisingly, a few likeable characters have crept in — grandads, even. He twinkles and smiles his way through The Intern (2015), which has landed today [Sunday, June 22] on Netflix.
And it's a long, squeaky clean way from another grandpa he played just a year later ….. 70-year-old Ben (De Niro) is retired, recently widowed, and, with time on his hands, goes in search of a new job. Getting back into the game isn't easy, but when the chance to be a senior intern at an online fashion start-up comes his way, he grabs it with both hands.
He soon becomes a popular member of the young team, and his charm, worldly wisdom, and sense of humor helps him develop a friendship with the company’s founder, Jules (Anne Hathaway).
![The Intern - Official Trailer [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZU3Xban0Y6A/maxresdefault.jpg)
It proves to be invaluable when the business develops growing pains and Jules faces some big decisions. One of De Niro’s more charming and gentle forays into comedy, the movie turned out to be something of a crowd pleaser, with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes giving it a solid 73%. And, in the hands of director Nancy Meyers, there was plenty to like.
While it deliberately avoids the romance that was an integral part of her better-known titles, such as The Holiday and What Women Want, it still has her usual warmth and wryly accurate flair for observation.
The movie benefits from her talent for creating likeable yet saccharine-free characters and what could have turned out to be a patronising portrait of later life aimed squarely at the grey market avoids both bear traps with ease. There’s an almost effortless feel to the De Niro/Hathaway partnership and, while neither actor is over-stretched, they’re still able to play to their individual strengths to make an appealing double act.
While The Intern is one of De Niro's lighter comedies, it also came at a time when he was dipping his toe into raunchier stuff. There's nothing that could be considered controversial about the film, but just twelve months later he was playing another grandfather who was a million miles away from being a standard bearer for the older generation.
Ben made full use of his experience and had what would be described in corporate speak as great people management skills. Charming rather than charmless, shrewd and easy to talk to, he was, if you like, Everybody’s Grandpa — as opposed to Dick, the titular anti-hero of Dirty Grandpa, which made its debut in cinemas the following year.
It's a radically different view of getting older, with a lecherous, foul-mouthed retired high-ranking Army officer finding life has unexpectedly opened up now he’s a widower, and deciding to make the absolute most of it. It’s almost as if Gunnery
Sergeant Hartmann from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) has made it to retirement and found a way of letting off all his pent-up steam. The only difference is that his profanities were more imaginative and certainly more eloquent.
Dirty Grandpa follows straight laced lawyer Jason (Zac Efron) who is tricked by his outrageous grandfather, Dick, into taking a road trip to Florida. About to marry the boss’s daughter, which is more of a career move than anything to do with love for the ambitious legal eagle, he’s persuaded by his recently widowed grandad to be his travel partner.
Dick only reveals later that his real plan to let rip and indulge in just about any kind of freedom that comes his way. And, while the older man indulges his liberation in just about every way possible, Jason is forced to confront his own repressed personality and take a closer look at his own priorities.
The grossout comedy found an audience, one that revelled in its deliberately coarse humour, and, while it was made for a budget of $25 million, its worldwide gross (no pun intended) was just over $94 million. But it took a hammering from the critics, with some finding it downright offensive and others taking it as a sign that De Niro’s career was on the slide. Time proved that wasn’t the case, as he’s continued to mix broad comedy with more serious roles, such as The Irishman (2019) and Killers Of The Flower Moon (2023).
Taken together, the two comedies do something more than simply paint strikingly different pictures of aging. They're also an example not just of De Niro's range as an actor — which, by this stage of his career, was a given — but his ability and willingness to play against type and do something different. It's exactly what both grandfathers do in their own inimitable fashions.
The Intern is on Netflix in the US and the UK.
Dirty Grandpa is on Prime Video in the US and Apple TV Plus in the UK.
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