Let's get one thing straight right off the bat here: "Jackass: The Movie" is not in any way a movie. There is no plot, there is no direction and there are no real characters. All this really constitutes on the screen is an 80-minute uncut version of the television show. There is no attempt at artistic merit or real filmmaking; rather it aims only to entertain. And in this regard, "Jackass" admirably achieves its goal.
This is the first movie in a long time during which I have not checked my watch at least once. Quite simply, the collection of sketches and outrageous stunts that fill this hour-and-a-half episode are stupid, infantile and really funny and gross. Johnny Knoxville and his band of merry idiots manage to top their prolific television exploits in terms of bad taste and bad humor, and we love them for it.
A quick sampling of some of the better portions of the "film:" alligator tightrope walking, rental car demolition derby, golf-cart bumper-cars and public defecation in a showroom toilet. None of these things even approach a standard of decency or good taste that we should be trying to teach or children, but that's why "Jackass" is rated R.
For those of you not in the know about the original TV series, "Jackass" began on MTV about a year ago with a group of masochistic young men who liked to get naked and hurt each other doing stupid things on television. Of course it was an instant hit, but had to be discontinued after some children didn't take to heart the warnings at the beginning of each episode. A child was severely burned after he tried to recreate Knoxville's famous "Human Barbecue" stunt. Knoxville halted production on the show earlier this year after the gags had become tedious and focused instead on this movie as one great goodbye to the short-lived TV phenomenon.
And "Jackass" stays true to the original series in every possible way. The budget for the film was only $5 million, but all of that must have been spent on travel and room service, as the movie is shot on digital video and looks like the home videos of my aunt's birthday. The hosts also serve as crewmembers and are present at almost every sketch, which is part of the appeal.
Even when something we see in the movie isn't quite funny to us, we can hear all the other Jackass players in the background cackling away, and we know that we are somehow glancing in on some inside joke of theirs that has made it to the big screen.
I can pinpoint the exact moment that "Jackass" fully achieves its goal of shocking the audience into extreme discomfort. At about two-thirds of the way through the movie, Knoxville and his cohort Steve-O decide to hurt themselves intentionally -- by giving themselves paper cuts on the webbing between their fingers and toes and the sides of their mouths.
While this seems horribly gross just to think about, watching it happen is a thousand times worse. This was the first moment where I simply could not watch the screen. I have to think that this is exactly what the makers of "Jackass" would have wanted.
If they had been there in the theater to watch me and four of my friends curled up in the fetal position shielding our eyes from what they were about to do, I know they would laugh. That is the point of "Jackass" -- not for us to laugh at Knoxville's stupid stunts, but for him to laugh at our stupid reactions.
So now we have come to that all-important part where I rate "Jackass" on the star scale. I have been struggling with this for days because in many ways, "Jackass" deserves zero stars for its plot, direction and film production values.
On the other hand, the case can be made that it deserves five stars based on sheer entertainment factor alone. So, unable to come to a decision, I chose simply to rate it on the number of times it made me want to vomit. So "Jackass" gets three and a half stars because I wanted to vomit during the paper cut scene, when a cast member defecated in his shorts and when a snow cone full of urine was eaten.
And I kind of wanted to throw up every time Steve-O appeared only in a jockstrap. And I think that is fair rating. How else would you judge the gross-out comedy to end all gross-out comedies?
3
stars
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