Jackass

Jackass Genuinely Juvenile; Fall-Down Funny

There’s an old riddle that goes, “What’s the most common last words of a redneck?” The answer is, “Hey y’all, watch this!”

While very few of us actually want to be that guy who straps a stolen jet engine on his Chevy Nova, there are a good number of us who want to see what happens when he fires it up.

That’s the premise behind Jackass, the formerly successful MTV series turned into a feature film. Host Johnny Knoxville and his band of misguided morons have been transforming frat house stunts into fulltime jobs on the television series for the past three years, earning the ire of critics and parents’ groups. The show has even been sued by injured individuals stupid enough to imitate the stunts. When professional party pooper Senator Joseph Lieberman singled out Jackass in his crusade against media violence last year, MTV pulled the plug on the show’s successful run.

The network then made a savvy move by giving Knoxville and his crew $5 million to make a feature film version of the show. By going the Rated R route, Jackass The Movie is able to push the envelope of grossness and insanity in a way that the television series only hinted at.

Okay. That said, Jackass The Movie is definitely not for everyone. Some of the stunts are so gross that they defy repeating here (think “urine snow cone”). Others are simply degrading both to the participants and the unsuspecting victims abused along the way. The multi-million dollar budget allowed the filmmakers to go to Japan for some of the stunts and the results make the viewer want to apologize to that entire nation and praise it for its Job-like patience.

But it is impossible to watch Jackass The Movie without laughing hysterically at some of the stunts. If you want to see horrific golf cart crashes, this is the place to go. If you want to see someone tattooed in the back of a Hummer while it careens down an off-road track at 50 miles an hour, this is your movie.

Knoxville and his buddies Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Bam Margera, Jason “Wee-Man” Acuna and Preston Lacy are so gleeful about the abuse that they pile upon each other that it is easy to overlook the fact that they actually get hurt from time to time. Knoxville went to the hospital for stitches after a department store boxing match with Tough Man champion Butterbean and reportedly suffered a concussion after a particularly gruesome golf cart crash.

Other stunts are less menacing but hard for the audience to watch. In one scene the guys sit around a motel room giving each other paper cuts between the toes and fingers with the business end of Manila envelopes. Another stunt involved using an electric muscle stimulator in places where it was not intended.

Jackass gets whatever charm it has from Knoxville--clearly the ringleader and most likely to get away with talking his way out of a bad situation. He is currently making the transition from provocateur to serious actor. He had a part in Men In Black II earlier this year and is set to star in a biopic about the late country-rock legend Gram Parsons.

Although Jackass issues a warning not to recreate the stunts depicted in the movie, it is clear that next semester’s frat house hazings will take their cue from the film. Emergency room personnel should be on the lookout for injuries involving mousetraps, Hot Wheels cars and shopping carts in the next few weeks.

Jackass The Movie is rated R and is currently playing at the Chalet Theatre in Boone.