Five Robert De Niro scenes that should be deleted from history
When Robert De Niro began his winning streak with roles in the likes of The Godfather Part II, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and The Deer Hunter in the 1970s, it wouldn’t be long before he scooped up several Oscars.
Winning for both The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull, De Niro proved himself to be one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation, and he’d continue to find acclaim with everything from Goodfellas to Silver Linings Playbook over the coming years. Yet, somewhere among these successful roles, something changed. De Niro suddenly seemed open to appearing in really bad comedies, credits he has increasingly racked up since the 2000s.
The actor has tarnished his reputation with an array of bizarre roles in comedies that are far from admirable, like the crude Dirty Grandpa, to saccharine rom-coms such as New Year’s Eve. Sadly, with these questionable acting choices have come awful, yet regrettably memorable scenes that we’d much rather forget ever existed. Many of them involve De Niro’s penis as the butt of the joke.
So, from Viagra mishaps to wanking, here are five scenes starring De Niro that should just be deleted from history.
The five worst scenes of Robert De Niro’s career:
‘The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle’ – ‘Taxi Driver’ parody
Hideous animation merged with live-action in the 2000 family comedy The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which, for some reason, De Niro signed up for. Perhaps he was a fan of the original animated series, which aired back in the 1950s? Still, the movie was a mess, and it didn’t do too well at the box office either; it remains one of De Niro’s more questionable career choices.
There’s one scene in it that feels like a real sell-out moment, though, and that’s when De Niro embarrassingly parodies his most iconic role as Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. It’s a cheap gag, with the actor sporting a bizarre slicked back hairstyle and monocle as he repeats “Are you talking to me?” This, for certain, is not one of the actor’s most admirable performances.
‘The Irishman’ – de-aged De Niro can’t kick
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was subject to much conversation upon its release in 2019, predominantly for its divisive use of digital de-ageing technology to make the main actors, including De Niro’s Frank, appear several decades younger. The problem with this, though, is that a 74-year-old still moves like a 74-year-old, even when he’s meant to be playing someone much younger.
As a result, we got one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments in De Niro’s whole filmography when his character goes to beat someone up at a grocery store. Bringing his victim out onto the pavement, he pathetically kicks him, hovering his leg as though he doesn’t have the balance to merely lift it anymore. It looks awful, and it became meme fodder as a result. The Irishman is a good film, but this is one scene that just didn’t need to exist.
‘Little Fockers’ – Viagra crisis
If there’s one thing you’ll learn from this list, it’s that De Niro loves a dick joke. The actor has appeared in many cock-centric scenes throughout his character, and in Little Fockers, he is yet again burst in on by an unexpected guest. In this scene, it’s a Viagra-related emergency that has De Niro’s Jack facing a five-hour-long erection, which results in Ben Stiller’s Greg, his son-in-law, having to give him an injection straight into his penis.
Of course, as this painful moment happens, little Colin Focker walks in on the disaster, his head obscuring the scene. Screams ensue. It’s not the worst scene in De Niro’s filmography, which is really saying something, but it’s certainly not one of his finest on-screen moments.
‘The War With Grandpa’ – Shaving foam towel drop disaster
You’d think that De Niro would’ve learned from playing embarrassing old men after the failure of Dirty Grandpa in 2016, but four years later, he spent the height of the pandemic appearing in more tripe. In particular, there was The War With Grandpa, which was much less problematic than Dirty Grandpa, what with De Niro’s co-star being a child. But it was just as shit.
In one particularly cringe-inducing sequence during the prank war, De Niro’s Ed puts shaving foam on his face, only to discover that it’s expanding foam, which has completely hardened, leaving him unable to talk. Still, we get a rather shoddily-acted mumble of “You mess with me!” as he pathetically tries to peel it off, only for his son-in-law to walk in just as his towel falls off. We don’t see anything, thank God, but the scene is incredibly predictable and, quite frankly, pretty embarrassing.
‘Dirty Grandpa’ – masturbating in a hotel
One of the most heinous moments in De Niro’s career came when he appeared in Dirty Grandpa. What possessed the Oscar-winning star to accept a role in a terrible, genuinely offensive comedy about a sex-obsessed old man who hits on much younger women is anyone’s guess. Probably a good cheque. Still, it’s baffling that he would stoop this low, even if he did need some quick cash.
The worst scene in the crude, bottom-of-the-barrel comedy, however, is definitely the sequence in which Zac Efron’s Jason walks in on his grandpa, De Niro’s Dick (what else would he be called?), having a wank. The movie shows us far too much – De Niro laid out on a reclining chair masturbating to porn with his trousers around his ankles, the action narrowly obscured by tissues and lotion. It’s certainly too much De Niro for most viewers.
