JACKASS: BEST AND LAST (B-minus) - Some people will just never be old enough to know better.
One way to get me to laugh out loud is to remind me of the following story from middle school (at least 50 years ago): We were playing basketball on the playground. An errant toss sent the basketball dribbling toward the street. Dave Z ran after it. He proceeded to clang face first into the stop sign on the corner. We fell over ourselves convulsed in laughter, even though a part of our still-forming brains knew that we should be concerned about whether Dave was hurt. (Turns out he wasn't seriously hurt.) I can still hear the clang of the stop sign, and I just can't stifle the urge to laugh.
Around those days, too, my mother banned any TV viewings of "The Three Stooges" from the household. She feared that their slapstick routines would rub off on me and my brother and that one of us would skull the other with a hammer or a frying pan. I recall the ban lasting a year or two, but who knows. As extreme a constitutionally questionably prior restraint as that was, it was perfectly rational for a 1970s mom to fear the repercussions of exposure to repeated face slapping and eye poking.
By the turn of the millennium, that all became just a quaint notion from a long-ago time. Because it was around then that "Jackass" debuted on MTV, in which a group of immature men went out of their way to try to injure themselves in the goofiest way possible. Twenty-five years -- and a bunch of concussions and broken bones -- later, the "Jackass" crew offers its fifth and final collection of detrimental gags, and (don't tell my mom) I finally sneaked off to watch this 90-minute valedictory, which is chock full of classic clips and a few new stunts. And like a rebellious 12-year-old, I laughed a lot.
Never in the history of this blog has a Holy Crap* been so literally intended: These boys are absolutely obsessed with their butts and what comes out of them (and occasionally what they shove up them). One of the guys goes by the nickname Poopies. You might be weak like me and have to fast-forward through some of the more excretory scenes (i.e., anything involving a port-a-potty upended (or sling-shotted into the air) with some poor sap in it). Not to worry, there will plenty of whacks to the balls to justify your time commitment.
Pardon me for being late to this phenomenon, but this is my first extended exposure to the antics of Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and their cadre of overgrown boys. (There is a woman in the group now, but she almost never speaks or puts her body on the line. Did the EEOC mandate her hiring at some point?) Boy, have they had a lot of fun the past quarter century.
When folks complain about men acting like 12-year-olds, "Jackass" is exactly the type of behavior they are talking about. These scenes capture what it would be like if adolescent boys could flourish without any parental guidance. There is no mom around to say, "And if your friends jumped off the roof would you do that too?", because yes, these guys would if Johnny Knoxville did it first. The idiocy is distilled to its essence. They are an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon come to life.
This best-of collection of stunts and pranks comes at you fast, starting with Knoxville's original verboten idea -- donning a bullet-proof vest (and padding it further with Hustler magazines) and shooting himself with a .38 caliber pistol. The highlights fly by quickly: Knoxville getting gored (and nearly crippled) in a bullfight; Knoxville, in an homage to Wile E. Coyote, strapping himself to a rocket that gets launched; Knoxville in old-man makeup as Bad Grandpa in a male strip club. New gags include Steve-O getting a prostate exam from a robot (whoever voices the robot throughout fires off a lot of Howard Stern-level wisecracks throughout the movie); Poopies wearing a doggie shock collar on his dick (while navigating a balance beam); and some serious terrorizing of cast members locked in a darkened escape room.
The enduring appeal here is the payoff of every stunt, which involves a moment of impact followed by the rest of the group keeling over in hysterics. Knoxville's cackle is infectious. To a man, they are immune from inhibitions. Everything is comedy, especially if it involves the morbidly obese dude wearing as little clothing as possible. One of the funniest classic clips involves the guys hiding in a tree blind at a golf course and blowing an air horn every time a golfer tees off. It is brilliant in its simplicity.
These are good-natured adrenaline junkies, now middle-aged extreme skate punks, and who are we to complain if the only people they hurt are themselves? As far as I know, no one has died. None of them ended up in a wheelchair. Sure, some of these 50-somethings probably can't lift their arms high enough to comb their hair. I'm sure we'll hear of a premature heart attack any time now.
But don't miss the point. If your buddy runs face first into a stop sign, trust your instincts. Laugh first, then check for cheek fractures or scattered teeth. Dave Z's probably laughing with you on the inside, if not bleeding internally. Commit to the bit. It's what we did when we were 12, and why tinker with the perfect formula?
* - Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique films, cutting a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out previous entries here.
BONUS TRACKS
From the closing credits, Australia's Ratsalad with "Southerly":
No comments:
Post a Comment