In an age when we can have a fifth Toy Story movie, why not a fifth Jackass? When news first broke in 2001 that the hit MTV series, where Johnny Knoxville and co repeatedly injure themselves in increasingly creative ways, was getting a silver screen version, the consensus was whether a movie would work. Turns out, it did, and not just once. This fifth outing, Best and Last, is a lot of fun, even if it doesn’t feel explicitly necessary.
2022’s Jackass Forever felt like the perfect farewell – a surprisingly heartfelt and bruising celebration of ageing and friendship. Part 5 feels less like a new film than an extended clip show, piecing together deleted stunts, behind-the-scenes footage and a series of best skits.
There isn’t a lot of new footage, but that’s probably just as well – these men are well into their fifties now, their hair going visibly grey, and the physical limitations can’t be ignored. Johnny Knoxville can only be launched from so many rockets or be speared on the horns of so many bulls before the laws of biology intervene, and before long, he’ll be able to play the Bad Grandpa character without the need for a costume. The crew seem aware of this, hence the need for this last one to be a compilation piece. Any new material is squarely focused on gross-out stunts rather than anything involving flinging themselves into bear traps and the like. Their hips (and balls) can no longer take it.
Nonetheless, it’s remarkable how nostalgic Jackass has become. Few franchises can inspire genuine sentimentality while revolving almost entirely around grown men being kicked, punched, catapulted, electrocuted or struck in the testicles. It’s bizarrely moving to see the humble beginnings of the franchise showcased here, in an audition video from 1998, of a very young Knoxville donning a bulletproof vest and shooting himself in the chest in the woods. There’s something incredible about watching it, knowing what lay ahead, and how such a worldwide phenomenon could have originated from something so simple and, yes, pretty stupid.
The never-before-seen footage, unfortunately, isn’t very interesting – the reasons for it never being seen are generally owed to concerned MTV commissioners (reasonably) fearing a backlash. In one such scene, the gang Sellotape Knoxville inside a cardboard box full of pillows and proceed to fling him down a staircase. Apparently, it was left on the cutting room floor because MTV deemed it “imitatable.” I’ve got news for MTV – nothing here defies the realms of imitation. When the show first aired, you were always faintly aware of cases where teenagers had attempted to imitate virtually everything in it, and clocking up giant medical bills as a result. There’s a reason the series was littered with disclaimers – the series definitely took lengths to show how much these stunts could hurt, whether professionals were present or not.
The creativity of the franchise can never really be questioned. Thirty years in, there’s still a surreal inventiveness to many of these ideas that no other comedy series has really replicated. I’ve seen every one of these movies (the last three in cinemas once I was finally old enough to buy a ticket myself) and have never watched one that failed to hold my attention, provoke uncontrollable laughter or make me physically squirm. To hold an audience in that fervour, not once but five times across three decades, is an extraordinary achievement.
It’s a film that’s firmly for the die-hard fans, who are legion, so there’s an odd sense of sadness at seeing the cast at such a ripe age. For those who lived through the initial phenomenon, it doesn’t seem possible that so much time has passed. Beneath the endless injury and bodily trauma lies an unexpectedly melancholy awareness of ageing – not just theirs, but ours too. Watching these familiar faces once again willingly destroy themselves is a strange reminder not just of how long the series has existed, but of how much of your own life has unfolded alongside it.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Jackass, though, has nothing to do with the stunts at all. For three decades, the series has quietly documented one of the most unusual portrayals of male friendship ever put on screen. These are men who absolutely adore each other. Their affection is never really verbalised, but it’s obvious in every frame. They trust each other completely, celebrate one another’s successes, laugh through each other’s failures and remain astonishingly loyal after all these years. Strangely, this rarely gets discussed. Then again, when someone is being rammed in the groin by a battering ram, subtler themes inevitably struggle for attention.
Did we need a fifth Jackass film? Probably not. Did we really need any of them? Strangely, I think we probably did. Because beneath the broken bones, concussions, and endless assaults on the human body sits something unexpectedly wholesome: a thirty-year celebration of enduring friendship. Best and Last may not add much to the legacy, but it offers one final reminder of why this bizarre little franchise has remained impossible to look away from all this time. Even if a lot of that watching was through splayed fingers.
★★★
In UK cinemas on June 26th / Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Wee Man, Dave England, Danger Ehren, Preston Lacy, Rachel Wolfson, Jasper Dolphin, Dark Shark, Poopies, Zach Holmes / Dir: Jeff Tremaine / Paramount Pictures
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