Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Cast of Characters:

Irving Zisman - Johnny Knoxville

Billy - Jackson Nicoll

Director - Jeff Tremaine

Screenplay - Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville & Spike Jonze

Rated R for strong crude and sexual content throughout, language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use

      Johnny Knoxville dons the prosthetic liver spots and wrinkles as Jackass's Irving Zisman in Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa.

      86 year old Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) has recently suffered the loss of his wife. While at the funeral, Irving's daughter and grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll) show up not so fashionably late. She breaks the news to her dad that she could be facing more jail time and has to pawn her boy off on her dad.

      Although this comes much to Irving's displeasure, he reluctantly takes Billy with him on a road trip to hand him over to his father.

      At first, I was expecting this to be another Borat ripoff. The key difference though, is that while they both share the same format of pranking people clearly not in on the joke, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was more a mockumentary where Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa has a storyline to it. A film like this runs the dangerous risk of just putting in all the funny parts in the trailer and leaving you with nothing else when you finally see the movie. Many films before this have fallen prey to that and many after it still will. Fortunately, we are offered more than what we've been shown in the trailers. Johnny Knoxville delivers some funny moments of improvisation, but the real gem of this film is not him and its not even the reactions of those being pranked. It's Jackson Nicoll. He's not a newcomer. He's had small roles in The Fighter and the Arthur remake, but this is the first time I've seen him front and center stage and he hits it out of the park. Without giving anything away, there are things that he says, such as his first scene in a waiting room, where the reactions of those around him are priceless. Clearly, as a kid, I'm sure he was getting fed what to say through an earpiece, but I wouldn't be shocked if some of those moments, like Knoxville, were improvised. Sure, we've seen the typical "potty-mouthed kid" before and it normally forces a "oh, hardy-har-har" whatever laugh out of us. What Nicoll is able to do though is gradually get us to empathize with him and his situation. It's more than just watching a kid walk up to an adult bookstore worker and ask, "What's your stripper stage name?". There is a bit of heart to this film amongst all the raunchiness of it that's never overplayed, so it doesn't quite stick out like a sore thumb.

      While some laughs don't work as well as others do, the ones the do work are gut busting. Plus, no matter how many times, whether in the preview or in the film, I watch Irving make it rain dollar bills over his grandson gyrating to Warrant's "Cherry Pie" at a local beauty pageant, I'm gonna laugh my ass off. Combine that with the chemistry made between Knoxville and Nicoll and it's a great time. If you know what to expect out of this, then yeah, you're in for a good laugh, but if not, it's best you stay away. I give Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa a B+ (★★★½).

REVIEWS COMING LATER NEXT WEEK...

What the Hell Were They Thinking?!

Benjamin's Stash: Video Pick of the Week

Top 10 Horror Films of All-Time

Ender's Game

Free Birds

Last Vegas