The Jackass Crew is back on the big screen for one last round of tasers, bulls, puke, and a surprising amount of tears.
To say I’m a fan of Jackass feels like an understatement. I grew up with Jackass. From my earliest rebellious days, Jackass was there; first on my TV, and then on the movie screens (well, late night Comedy Central Movie programming, to be more exact). I thought they were the absolute coolest, gnarliest guys around. I bought any and all DVDs of their episodes, owned every last CKY movie (I had a CKY poster up in my room!), bought an embarrassing amount of Bam Margera gear, and spent hours downloading Dudesons skits and stunts.
Hell, I was even one of those dummies who went and made their own version of Jackass; we called ourselves “The American Rejects”, and did a lot of chugging salad dressings, pillow fist fights (where you duct tape a pillow to your hand and just straight box) and “Human Jousting” (where we’d just run into each other at full speed). This was all at 13, mind you, and I can still remember the massive neighborhood scandal that happened when one of our parents found the tapes (yes, tapes; this was 2005).
This is all to say that the Jackass guys mean a lot to me, and have been a pretty important part of my cultural upbringing. They’ve said “goodbye” more than a couple of times, but, with Jackass: Best And Last, it is clear that we’ve genuinely come to the end of the line.
Which, to be entirely frank, is probably for the best. While Jackass Forever felt like a celebration of Jackass, both the life it lived and those it inspired, Jackass: Best And Last feels more like a eulogy, as the crew truly come to terms with the end. There is a sadness that hangs over this film, as we see most of the original crew have a moment or two of teary reflection, or some existential realization that a chapter is ending.
It’s also the first of these where I could really feel everyone’s age. Somehow these guys, even as they aged into their 30’s and 40’s, had the energy and spunkiness of teenagers. They would be beaten to absolute pulps, but be able to pop up again, just to sprint across a field to either knock someone else in the balls or puke all over them. They seemed immortal, even into Jackass Forever, where we watched Knoxville, with a head full of silver hair, getting shot out of a cannon.
That immortality seems to have vanished in Jackass: Best And Last. The weirdest part of this, a fact that was pretty well hidden in the marketing, is that it’s mostly a clip show. Over half of this is either talking head conversations with the crew about their favorite skits, or just straight clips from the original show. There are some previously unseen ones in there (one in particular is genuinely jaw-dropping insane; more on that later), but it makes this feel even more like some “30 years later” type reunion special rather than a true Jackass film.
The new stuff has that same sort of energy, too. The stunts, for the most part, are tamer, focused more on grossouts rather than spectacle. The younger crew, namely Poopies and Zach**, take on most of the more hardcore stuff, with the classic crew watching on. I know that it makes sense that they aren’t partaking, and is honestly the smart move that they aren’t. But, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel weird that I didn’t see Ehren get put into a dangerous situation with an animal at least once.
That is except for Knoxville. Knoxville, the forever leader of Jackass, completes an arc that feels like something out of an old western, as we watch him, in clips and in the present, go from a young, magnetic madman to a seasoned, gruff journeyman who just wants one last chance to push himself to the limits.
We see who he was in his initial moment, as the film opens on the first, unaired clip from 1999. In this stunt, easily the craziest thing any of them have ever done, Knoxville shoots himself point blank in the chest with a 38. Special while wearing body armor. It is the type of recklessness that only youth can bring.
We then see who he is today; a little grayer, a little stiffer, but still just as crazy in the eyes, in (what I’m assuming) is his final stunt with the bull. It is a stunt that, in the first time in dozens of hours of Jackass, made me involuntarily blurt out “Jesus Christ”, as we watch him helicoptered through the air after a full sized hit. Unlike that 1999 stunt, Knoxville doesn’t just walk away with a laugh, but is instead carted away, clearly severely injured. Time has caught up, and Knoxville, through little moments of vulnerability he shows in Jackass: The Best And Last, is clearly deeply saddened by this reality.
Now, while I may seem down on this, I’m really not. I had the opportunity to hang out with “the boys” one last time, and it was still an amazing time! I got to see Bam terrified of a snake one last time! I got to see Knoxville almost die one last time! I got to see Steve-O shit himself one last time!
But, as it goes on, it becomes harder and harder to not notice the “one last time” of it all. Just like when you hangout with old high school friends, it’s a great time in the moment, but you can’t help but wonder; when will this happen again? Will this ever happen again? With Jackass, there may be some sort of reunion in the future, or some spin-off with the new blood, but this crew, this last bastion of true punk art, chances are that this’ll be the last time we see them all together.
And, while I had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs watching this, I couldn’t help but leave with a deep melancholic sadness; time didn’t stop for the Jackass boys, and it certainly isn’t stopping for me. We’re all just marching forward, one sack tap and hair buzzer attack at a time.
Jackass: Best And Last now available on Blu-ray!
*There was a short time there where I tried to resurrect the crew in high school, which saw us adding car stunts, that was quickly disbanded when a buddy of mine was almost decapitated playing “minivan carousel”.
**There is something very strange seemingly going on with the new crew, as Rachel Wolfson is just not a participant in anything here. She has full billing at the top as everyone else does, but never ascends past being an extra the rest of the film. Very odd.
