Jackass: The Movie (2002)
Grade: A-
Cast: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Preston Lacy, Chris Pontius, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, Dave England, Spike Jonze
Director: Jeff Tremaine
Rated R for dangerous, sometimes extremely crude stunts, and for nudity and language

Yes, you read that right.

The title of the movie I am reviewing is “Jackass The Movie”. I gave it the grade of an A-.

First of all, “Jackass The Movie” is both the truest and the most ridiculous titular advertisement ever. I have heard many times the line “who says there’s no truth in advertisement?” because the title “Jackass” hints, rightfully so, that the performers (I shouldn’t call them actors) in it are jackasses and yes, the audience watching and enjoying it consists of jackasses as well (hey, I loved the movie, but I’m not gonna say it’s misunderstood art—and I am gonna say I’m one of the non-jackass audience members, thank you very much). Then there’s the false part: the part where this is considered a movie. It might as well be called “Jackass The Definitive Guide to Native American Culture” because the last half of the title is as misleading as humanly possible.

Let me explain, exactly, what “Jackass” is. “Jackass”, a comedy to its fans and a travesty to everyone else, is a strange circus-freak form of slapstick masochism in which a bunch of ballsy male adults perform acts of crude self-destruction to get a laugh from those around them and the viewer. Sometimes, for variety, they try to make innocent people angry in a very Tom Green-esque way. This was MTV’s most popular show during its run, but it was eventually cancelled because of legal problems stemming from copycat stunts performed by—alright, I’ll say it—jackasses. One of the strangest aspects of “Jackass” is that it is played for nervous, pained, disbelieving laughter—ha-ha, he-he, ho-ho, look at how stupid those people are—and yet some of the self-mutilating artists on display don’t seem to realize that. Some seem dumb enough to think that the pain itself is funny, and the irony is that that very assumption is a source of some of the hilarious dark humor. I mean, maybe people don’t exist that think pain in and of itself is funny, but if they do, they’re some of the stars of “Jackass”.

“Jackass The Movie” has no script (I assume), no plot, no acting, and the cinematography is grainy and rough like a home-made movie…because that’s essentially what it is, only with a $5 million budget. The ringleader of these morons is Johnny Knoxville (who has had supporting roles in such films as “Big Trouble”, “Deuces Wild”, and “Men In Black II”), a dryly hilarious guy—just a step above a redneck—who seems to solely, amongst these guys, realize that he is in serious danger with some of the stuff he does. Knoxville has great comedic timing, and it is put to use in scenes where he and Spike Jonze (co-creater of the show, and director of “Being John Malkovich” [!]) don makeup that visually ages them a couple decades. They can thus pass as Old People and see how the foreign shop owner reacts when they try to shoplift, or when Knoxville, as a senior citizen, tries weightlifting and hilariously exaggerates the results to make it seem fatal.

When Knoxville and Jonze aren’t doing that, though—and when Chris Pontius (“Party Boy”) isn’t in a thong humping a fortuneteller—someone’s taking their turn with the brutal, humiliating self-abuse. Knoxville takes a beanbag shot to his stomach at a couple hundred feet per second; Bam Margera, the guy who usually abuses his parents (one of the funniest scenes has him waking them up by setting off firecrackers in their room), allows himself to get beat up by a professional female boxer in Tokyo; Steve-O sets off a bottle rocket after planting it directly into his rectum, and this is later repeated with a new addition: the rocket is tied to Pontius’s penis; and, to top off my briefing, the crew (in one of the most painful and least funny sequences) give themselves paper cuts with a manila folder that gives a new, lethal reputation to manila folders everywhere. Then there are gross but screamingly funny shots such as the (admittedly overly disgusting) Yellow Snow Cone skit, and a sight gag involving an instinctual reaction from sea cucumbers.

All of this is just about the most subjective form of comedy ever. One can’t boil its appeal down to sex, age, or other general interests, because I can find exceptions to each point. So, whether you, personally, the individual reader, will like it or not I cannot say. All I can say is that “Jackass” is, as is predictably not being admitted by most people, the funniest film of the year bar none (that could change, but I highly doubt it). I was laughing (to varying levels) during nearly every waking second of it. Laughing at the nutty, bold impudence of it all. Laughing at the reactions of the people around them. Laughing at their own pained reactions. Laughing at their nonchalant zeal. A combination of all this went into my laughter, and the humor in “Jackass” came absolutely ceaselessly. For the entire (all too short) running length, the viewer (rather, this viewer) is convulsed with fits of laughter occasionally buried underneath winces of sympathy to the pained idiots on screen.

What else is there to say about “Jackass”? Nothing. Either you go for the masochistic carnival delights of it all or you don’t. If you do, I can guarantee it is the funniest film to hit the screen in years, maybe since “South Park” or “There’s Something About Mary”. The film is sometimes hard to watch and will offend many, whether it be because of the juvenile raunch (paging those sea cucumbers) or because it “promotes” stunts and masochism (it really doesn’t, I’m just saying that politicians may beg to differ). If you can get past the political incorrectness and find the funny in “Jackass”, I can guarantee you’ve struck comedic gold.


-Alex, November 2002