Jackass: The Movie

Based on the popular MTV TV show on which Johnny Knoxville and his buddies performed all kinds of daring goofiness for the camera, this movie version showcases all of the stuff that they couldn’t show you on TV. Moronic, but quite funny, behavior ensues.

I can’t really write a “movie review” of this picture because it’s not really a movie or is there any kind of “story” involved. It’s basically the videotaped shenanigans of a bunch of juvenile tattooed adults who don’t seem to have evolved past the age of 13 in terms of creating entertainment for themselves, and whether or not you take yourself seriously (I most certainly don’t), you too will likely find enough idiocies in the movie to laugh yourself silly, stare in amazement and forget about the crappy nature of your own existence for a quick, and sadly not lengthy enough, 82 minutes. Living in Canada, I had never seen one episode of MTV’s “Jackass” before, but knew of it, and certainly had seen Johnny Knoxville on TV here and there, and appreciated his self-deprecating sense of humor. This movie is packed with snippets of he and his buddies basically thinking up the most over-the-top, zany things to do (kinda like “Fear Factor” but with hip tunes, swearing and much cooler shite) and then actually doing them for the cameras! Overall, I appreciated most of their antics, laughed quite a bit, found myself wanting to hang out with these fellas (although I’m too much of a pussy to try any of that stuff-and nobody else should, of course…not recommended) and loved the opening sequence of the whole gang flying down an embankment in a oversized grocery cart…kewl! I also wished that I had drank a few beers before my screening, since I’m sure that I would have enjoyed it even more.

As it stands now, many of their goofy skits cracked me up, in particular those having to do with the Pandas, the old men (the shoplifter was hilarious!), anything that ultimately led to any of them puking on-screen (like that dude who ate his own urine ice-cone), the real-life moments of the boys setting their pranks up inside actual stores (like when Knoxville got his head kicked in by Butterball inside a department store or when that other dude took a dump inside a hardware store), the stuff in the golf carts, the paper-cuts and many more. I also liked most of the stuff they did in Japan, particularly because the people there seemed so cool about it– very matter of fact. A small amount of their stunts didn’t do it for me. The stuff with the parents wasn’t all that funny, and the whole alligator trick with the mom seemed fake. More stuff I did like included Knoxville jumping off a trampoline and into a ceiling fan (!), as well that other dude getting his ass whipped by a girl. Nice! The bottom line with this movie is really whether or not you think this is all “dumb and nothing else” or whether you think it’s “dumb and pretty funny”. I’m in the latter camp and even though the whole “reality TV” thing is starting to wear mighty thin nowadays (although these guys all perform their own stuff and you can feel that), you are not likely to see much of what’s shown in this movie anywhere else. I also really dug the lively tunes throughout including the Ramones, Danzig and many other cool-meisters. See it if you’re interested in what happens when a man shoves a toy car up his ass or a couple of dudes fill their swimming trunks with shrimp and jump inside a whale-laden ocean, and skip it if you’re not into the whole Tom Green over-the-top stupid/gross/funny vibe.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian