This might just be my guilty pleasure movie of the year: “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa,” for all its crude stupidity and general juvenility, had me howling with laughter and squirming in empathetic discomfort. Much to my surprise and much as it pains me to say it, I kinda liked it. A big-screen outing for Johnny Knoxville’s grandpa character from the “Jackass” TV show — the one who once walked around a store stuffing bananas and crisp packets in his jacket — it sees Knoxville donning old-man prosthetics and pulling hidden-camera pranks on the poor, unsuspecting general public. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue.
Interwoven with the stunts, if you’ll believe it, is an actual, full-blooded narrative: happily widowed 86-year-old drunkard/pervert Irving Zisman is tasked with driving his 8-year-old grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll) across the US to live with his father when his mother is sent to jail. Along the way Irving and the kid get into all kinds of crazy hijinks, many of which are sparked by Irving’s unflagging attempts to get a “piece of tail.” Basically, this is a hidden-camera cross-country comedy in the vein of “Borat,” with, rather oddly, elements from “Little Miss Sunshine” sneaking in: there’s a dead body in the trunk of grandpa’s car, that of his late wife, and the climax is set at one of those creepy beauty pageants for dolled up toddlers.
Knoxville’s grandpa character is often hilariously inappropriate, but the real pleasure is in watching the public’s confused and/or shocked reactions to his lewd behaviour — be it him getting his Johnson stuck inside a vending machine or dancing in a male strip joint with his balls dangling below his knees. Billy gets his own pranks too, and little Jackson Nicoll is perfectly cast: both adorable and wickedly funny, this kid’s a promising young talent with real comedy chops. As for the film, it’s not as wildly unpredictable nor deliriously creative as the “Jackass” movies, restricted by a formulaic narrative whereas its predecessors thrived on anarchic, unhinged randomness, but it’s good for a chuckle and a cringe, and is probably the best movie you’ll see this year in which an old man sharts diarrhoea onto a restaurant wall.
End note: Can we please have a Party Boy spin-off next? Pretty please?
Rating: 6/10
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