Johnny Knoxville lived long enough to have white hair. I never would have guessed that. In fact, the film shows a self-promotional video of “young” Johnny literally shooting himself (protected by Kevlar vest and several naughty magazines). This, of course, is where the film both succeeds and fails. Yes, it did show Johnny literally shoot himself. But the aftermath is so quiet that you almost get the feeling like he didn’t. Geez, buddy, let’s see a big welt, a failing organ, and an Playboy magazine assessment, “you can see here where the bullet made it through Erika Eleniak’s centerfold, yet stops in the middle of the La Toya Jackson pictorial.
I mean, who is this for? You go to a film to watch immature men doing really stupid things, why stop there?
I don’t know if Jackass: Best and Last truly means this is the last of the Jackassery. My guess is “no,” because there will always be a market for self-inflicted pain. This whole genre is about men doing stupid, stupid, stupid things. In fact, I’m certain that these stunts are decided upon by whether or not they’ve been pre-disapproved by normies. The gang is introduced in a funhouse of sorts where random projectiles sock, pelt, and floor our heroes. That’s just the beginning.
I wrote down the series of misadventures, so you don’t have to:
Robot Rectal Exam
Golf Airhorn
Follow the Leader (electric shock)
Convict Hacksaw (vintage footage)
Poor Cocktail Supreme
Lip Filler
Silence of the Lambs (pitch black room, loose snack, ‘nuf said)
The Bungee Jump
The Marionettes
Electric Chair
Bad Grandpa
Big Red Rocket
Office Party
Tee Ball (with testicles, of course)
Pole Vault
Butt X-Ray (guy stuffs a toy car his ass)
Dum Dum Game (with Paul Walter Hauser)
The Abduction (archive, with Brad Pitt)
The Balance Beam
Human Pretzel
The Magic Trick
Escape Room from Hell
Many of those titles won’t mean a thing to you. So lemme illustrate a few. In The Marionettes, three idiots are strung up above a stage while a sadistic director pummels them with random projectiles and stuff. In Big Red Rocket, archive footage, Knoxville himself hangs onto
an oversized firework that explodes above a lake. In Human Pretzel, four men are given extreme laxatives and then forced to play Twister.
None of these are things adults should do. None of these are things children should do, either, but I’m hoping supervision will take care of that problem. Two things strike me about all this: The first is there’s a lot of archive footage in this film. At least five of the segments drew upon things we’d already seen. In only 92 minutes of movie, that seems like a bit of a cheat. The second is, I dunno, I feel kind of blasé about the whole Jackass thing. The antics might have struck me once. But now? “Yeah, that is stupid. Move on.” Is my fallback reaction. I don’t feel especially moved by any of these antics. They don’t strike me as funny or shocking, just sorta, “what do you expect; they’re Jackasses.”
One moment did strike me, and I definitely want to call attention to it. In the segment The Magic Trick, Johnny Knoxville -bless him for doing his own stunts; he sure doesn’t have to- plays a magician doing a trick in a live rodeo. The joke is he makes a ball disappear or some crap and then is attacked by an angry bull, like the kind bullriders employ. On cue, the bull does indeed attack Knoxville, upending our host. It’s a pretty good shot. And yet, Johnny Knoxville reviews the footage and is unsatisfied.
He wants a second take.
He has been attacked by a bull, has fresh in his mind exactly what that feels like, and wants to do it better. I respect the Hell out of the professionalism that went into that moment. Kudos, Mr. Knoxville; there is clearly part of you that believes in art-for-art’s-sake.
That is stupid as all Hell, but I respect you. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the Jackass gang. I think the schtick is tired, and Steve-O and Dave England seem especially … middle-aged these days. Jackassery is a young man’s game; please retire, fellas. Let the new generation of idiots get shot or attacked by bulls or flung in porta-potties. It’s ok. Pass the torch. In my heart, you’ll always be Jackasses.
Idiots into self-mutilation
As their brains haven’t reached maturation
Plan hijinks all day
As the lens won’t sway
From what all amounts to group masturbation
Rated R, 92 Minutes
Director: Jeff Tremaine
Writer: Too many, don’t care
Genre: Idiocy
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Those forever in a state of arrested development
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “This is stupid”
