News & Opinion

Angry chaos stalks our world. Who knows if this can soothe us—but Zac Efron and Robert de Niro have thoughtfully sought to unite our vexed planet in a good, old-fashioned, collective gawpfest by playing out, in character, a muscle pose-down on the set of their new movie, Dirty Grandpa.

While filming on Tybee Island, Georgia, shirts were removed, and man-tits and biceps exposed.

By any measure, this could have been one extremely cruel ‘compare and contrast.’

Efron, 27, would have made Michelangelo’s ‘David’ run away weeping hot tears of jealousy—“My ass is made of marble, but next to him? Please, just leave me to my plinth”—but De Niro, 71, is not going to cede his tree-trunk-thick bicep crown just yet.

In the photographs from the set De Niro is more than a match for Efron, and the crucible of online comment seems to suggest that there are more lusty sighs for the older actor than the younger.

The film, which sounds potentially dreadful unless you’ve had a few gin and tonics, apparently has De Niro as a wild grandpa and Efron his square grandson.

De Niro tries to loosen this straight-laced nitwit up, which would explain Efron’s character wearing a fleece, and all those “I don’t want to do this” expressions around his clothes coming off on stage.

Hmmm. The problem with that concept, as these pictures show, is that this straight-laced grandkid has a rocking body only perfected through four-hour workouts, a six-pack which is probably a 12-pack, and more than a passing acquaintance with the local tanning salon.

Other shots of Efron from the set have him gamboling around in a pair of Spanx-style underwear, looking pretty much like, “This is my idea of formalwear.”

Though he tries to feign self-consciousness and a grimace, Efron is never happier than when stripping off at awards shows, like the MTV Movie Awards in 2014.

If Efron’s character is supposed to be straight-laced, he also knows his way to the protein shake rack. I don’t know many straight-laced conservatives who know how to pack a pair of tight pants like Efron’s character.

Oh, hang on.

As for De Niro, his impressive physique has been on display before: as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (before LaMotta piled on the pounds), and as the terrifying Max Cady in Cape Fear. Men’s Fitness was so impressed with his hot psycho ex-con look they provided a Robert De Niro’s ‘Jailhouse Training’ guide. And, of course, he was also ripped and shredded, toting a gun, in Taxi Driver.

In Dirty Grandpa, De Niro seems to be doing one-handed push-ups, and throwing Efron over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Their matchy-matchy stand-ins look adorable.

And so, men, thanks to one set of pictures, we realize we have no excuse at any age. In your twenties and early thirties, there is the sculpted, humpy, bumpy Efron example to live up to.

And any hope that you can let yourself fall into happy Doritos decrepitude by the time you hit your seventies has been torpedoed by the impressively firm, ridged, studly De Niro.

So yes, they both look great—thanks a bunch, Zac and Bob.