Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa – Film Review

Thanks to brilliant makeup and some nifty acting skills, the 42-year-old Johnny Knoxville is pretty darned convincing as the fictional 86-year-old Irving Zisman, who sets off here on a journey across America with his tubby, mouthy, eight-year-old grandson, Billy (Jackson Nicoll). The Bad Grandpa’s wife’s just died and he’s finally free and happy, but gets saddled with the kid. But he reluctantly agree to take the sassy kid on the liberating road trip and introduces him to some pretty dodgy people places, and situations.

Their old man and young boy behaving badly mission is to fool and annoy all and sundry of the poor, pathetic real-life schmucks of the everyday southern American public they meet along the way. This they do big time, raising huge, grossout laughs, mostly, though not all, at the expense of some pretty dumb folks. They coolly set them up and take the mickey.

The duo encounter male strippers, disgruntled child beauty pageant contestants and their mothers, funeral home mourners, biker bar patrons, and a whole lot of other unsuspecting citizens, most of them surprisingly tolerant and nice.

Though not all of them. Knoxville manages to enrage a couple of blokes, winding them up to the point of nearly getting punched. Bad Grandpa, indeed. It makes these guys look like bad sports, when actually they’re just victims. Knoxville himself stages a couple of brilliant stunts and generally pushes the envelope in search of laughs – and finds them.

You’d think a law of diminishing returns would set in after all these years of Jackass. But Knoxville still finds fresh ground. He could have a very nice career as an actor. He was good as Lewis Dinkum in Arnie’s movie The Last Stand this year. but he obviously enjoys the money-spinning Jackass.

The enforced placing of real people in unreal situations is disreputable and abusive, of course, but surprisingly the movie remains good-natured (if filthy) and is almost continuously funny and often hilarious for lovers of messed-up comedy.

Knoxville and the kid are a great double act — the kid’s hysterical and a natural comedian. But I worry about how this boy’s going to grow up. Maybe he won’t, Knoxville’s 42 now and he clearly hasn’t grown up.

It’s basically Candid Camera, with the bonus of the well-conceived framing story about the dead wife, her funeral, her body in the trunk of Knoxville’s car, the kid’s mom going to jail, his dad a wasted druggie, and of course a bad grandpa and a naughty kid on a road trip etc. And it actually has a scripted screenplay to help it along too.

There are a few dud gags and failed stunts, but not many, and almost all of it works a witty treat. It’s very crisply and heavily edited to capture all the best moments of the road trip. The highlight is when the boy enters a kids’ beauty pageant, dressed, weirdly credibly, as a little girl. It’s real creepy and hysterical. No one rumbles her/him till (s)he takes his blonde wig off.

Spike Jonze helps out with the story and screenplay, and appears as an old woman.

Knoxville’s real name is Philip John Clapp. Now that is funny! How on earth did he get called Knoxville? Oh, he was born and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. Witty.

The film has a 15 certificate and features an eight-year-old boy whose little counterparts in the public would no doubt be happy to see it but can’t.

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 derewkwinnert.com