Comedy Pick: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013)
I was a teenager in 2000 when Jackass exploded into an Evel Knievel-on-crack phenomenon. I absolutely loved it. The irreverent, caution-to-the-wind fucked-uppery of it all. A few years passed by and the hijinks of Johnny Knoxville and company had begun to wear thin. Not because they weren’t funny but, because their dices with death weren’t as shocking if you’d seen it before.
So when I found myself on a long haul flight with a bunch of new releases I’d already seen, I thought, why not? Let’s see if Knoxville has still got it.
About ten minutes later one of the air stewards made a beeline for me. “What are you watching?” she asked, leaning over my other half, “Cause I haven’t heard anyone laugh like that in-flight for a LONG TIME.”
Knoxville plays Irving Zisman, an old timer whose wife has recently died. At her funeral, his daughter barges in telling him he’s got to take care of her son as she violated her parole and has to go back in the slammer. He begrudgingly agrees and so begins a road trip to get the boy to his father in North Carolina.
Unlike the previous three Jackass features, this time there’s a thin excuse for a plot. I say excuse, ‘cause the silliness and mayhem are all concealed within it. Barely. The hidden camera technique director Jeff Tremaine used throughout the Jackass series and movies is still in play, but resulting laughs prove that what ain’t broke don’t need fixin’.
Knoxville’s Zisman is a dastardly degenerate who attracts disaster at every turn, from accidentally lodging his member in a vending machine to smashing a kiddie ride through a storefront window. It’s all so damned funny because it’s all so unexpected – as noted by the shocked expressions of the gathered crowds. The film’s shoot involved undercover performances, so all the bystanders believed what they were seeing was real. Hence, an opportunity for capitalizing on a ton of niche comedy.
Which, is completely the result of Zisman. The idea of Knoxville as an aging perv might be difficult to believe, but is made all the more believable by a hefty load of facial prosthetics. He nails it in the old man’s attire, as he teaches his grandson the unconventional ways of the world – instead of the youthful bunch of Jackasses, it’s a wisecrackin’ pair at the opposite ends of life. You could do a lot worse than spend 90 minutes in their company, full of dirty jokes and zany slapsticking.