I will miss Jackass like an unemployable, somewhat disturbed younger brother you can’t take out to social gatherings. For the better part of 25 years, the Jackass crew has dominated good-natured, badly conceived stunt filmmaking, keeping gonzo dreams of concussions and unfettered immaturity alive for millions of fans. Turn your nose up at the silliness all you want; this is as pure as comedy gets, and there are no victims. Well, not any unwilling ones. On that fateful day when Johnny Knoxville decided to test out self-defense weaponry on himself and was thrown into the world of skating when Jeff Tremaine commissioned the story for Big Brother magazine, the world was changed forever.
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Cinematic tastes may have changed over the years, but there’s just something eternally appealing about grown men (though not exclusively), willingly taking groin shots and making themselves vulnerable in the name of entertainment. There’s a commentary on the human condition in there somewhere, but really, the fact that there are now 5 mainline Jackass movies (as well as one special, a fully fledged comedy feature – Bad Grandpa – and three semi-sequels cut together from unused additional footage) proves just how much the world loves slapstick. Sadly, thanks to a combination of advancing age and medical advice, Jackass: Best and Last really is the last outing for the gang, but they’ve gone out with a bang.
Rating: 4 out of 5
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Some very good – and very disturbing – new stunts | The newer cast members are a little left out |
| The nostalgic look back at the Jackass journey is surprisingly affecting | |
| Unseen and previously banned footage is a great fan bonus |
Strictly speaking, Jackass: Best and Last isn’t entirely a new movie. It’s more like a nostalgic scrapbook that marries some new stunts with new cuts of some of the crew’s favorite franchise moments, and some unseen footage that was previously banned. The latter is particularly enjoyable, in the context of what the movie actually is – the story of Jackass’ beginning, middle, and end.
As usual, some of the stunts work better than others, but there’s a similar sort of endearing gonzo spirit to the parts that aren’t quite as glossy. Like those Spike Milligan sketches that the legendary comedian dropped partway through if they weren’t working. Sometimes Jackass: Best and Last leaves remnants of bits they clearly didn’t think worked out (like part of the Escape Room from Hell, where Dark Shark’s pants are inexplicably covered in excrement). You get the sense that they might release a Jackass 5.5, as they have before, with all of the footage they didn’t use here. I dearly hope they do, even if it would somewhat undermine the finality of the ending.
Jackass: Best and Last is Genuinely Emotional
It occurred to me, watching Jackass: Best and Last, that this franchise is one of the defining ones of my adult life. Jackass first came out when I was 16 and I remember watching it (and far more disturbing British knockoff Dirty Sanchez) with wide-eyed glee. This brand of skater boy anarchy was off limits to me in real life, but the culture of their music and their clothes was exactly like mine, and the cheeky outrageousness was like the devil sitting whispering on my shoulder. I have, to my shame and wayward pride, tried this at home. And I’m not a trained professional anything. So this film feels like a full-circle moment, and a bonus at the same time, because I never expected a fourth movie and still tear up when Wheezer’s “Memories” plays over the final credits of Jackass 3.
That’s possibly why I really like Jackass: Best and Last, but even objectively, there’s a lot to admire in how it’s put together. Take away the scatalogical mess and the toe-curling cringe, and there’s an emotional poignancy to a group of friends having to reckon with not being able to do what they love ever again. That it’s because Johnny Knoxville has had too many concussions, and because Ehren McGhehey surely can’t take much more punishment is purely incidental. You get, all the way through, a warmth of old friendship and the kind of camaraderie that is weirdly frowned upon these days.
The movie starts where Jackass did, with an extended version of the self-defense weapons testing assignment Knoxville assigned himself to. We get to see a much younger, much more concerningly fragile Johnny (called “PJ” in the footage because his real, less glamorous name is Philip John Clapp) trying and, at first, failing to shoot himself in the chest with a revolver to test a bullet proof vest. The very fact that there are mentions of his real name feels like the end of the magic trick.
There are other banned moments resurrected too: the escaped inmate stunt from the pilot that we’ve seen some of, but which forced Jackass on hiatus, and then led to an MTV filming ban in LA for a decade. There’s also a simple, horrendously visceral clip that’s never been seen of Knoxville being taped into a cardboard box and rolled down stairs. It was, they say with amusement, banned because it was “too easy to copy”. Given the injuries Knoxville lists from it, you have to wonder why, but I admit I still think things like that are cool, so maybe I’m just an idiot.
Seeing lots of old footage means seeing footage of Ryan Dunn, which always comes with a real pang of sadness after his death, and there’s a fair amount of Bam Margera, including one stunt he filmed and was edited out of for Jackass Forever. Both are spoken about with the same glowing reverence, and it’s a real shame Bam wasn’t allowed to speak about his own journey. Some older veterans also don’t return, and it’s mostly Johnny, Steve-O, and the delightful Chris Pontius who get most screen time, followed by Wee Man. That’s not a bad thing, but Dave England, Danger Ehren, Bam, and Preston were responsible for some of the more disturbing pranks and always get less chance to talk.
What Doesn’t Quite Work in Jackass: Best and Last
There is a slight imbalance between old and new that at times made me wish we’d got a fully new Jackass movie AND a retrospective documentary or docuseries, but I know that’s me being greedy, and I can’t take away much for that. But it also does mean that the new cast members who were brought in for Jackass Forever get a little too sidelined in the new movie. The previous movie’s breakout, Poopies, has a couple of good stunts, Jasper Dolphin gets one funny goat attack sequence, and Zach Holmes is key to one harrowing stunt (but he’s a prop in it rather than a contributor per se), and then Dark Shark and Rachel Wolfson are just sort of there on the fringes. I would actually also have liked a bit more Dave England, who I often felt ended up overlooked in the original series and movies because his brand of naive-seeming fear was always a bit less obnoxious or colorful than some of the others.
In the end, I mostly judge Jackass: Best and Last for not giving me more of what I love. I hope there’s more (even if it’s Jackass 5.5), and a big part of me hopes Knoxville’s genuinely heartfelt and teary confirmation that it is the end is just a lie. Like it has been after all the other movies. But the movie makes a big deal of showing one of the Jackass Forever injuries that has ended this franchise (as well as the irresistible advance of time, of course), and it’s sort of hard to argue. But f*ck, man, it was great while it lasted.
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