Actually, 'Jackass Forever' Is *Exactly* What the World Needs
Per tradition, Jackass Forever opens with a warning: “The stunts in this movie were performed by professionals, so for your safety and the protection of those around you, do not attempt any of the stunts you’re about to see.” Since Johnny Knoxville and company’s hijinks first premiered on MTV in 2000, such notices have sought to both caution viewers against partaking in potentially lethal mimicry, and to limit corporate liability in the event that they do. Nonetheless, these introductory missives are also central to the success of the series, functioning as impish proclamations that the forthcoming feats are as authentic as they appear. Simply put, they’re declarative badges of honor, confirming that every doubled-over expression of pain, every gruesome concussion and bloody laceration, and every burst of vomit and explosion of fecal matter, is the real outrageous deal.
In theaters February 4, Jackass Forever is the first franchise entry since 2013’s Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, and as with its big- and small-screen predecessors, it’s a work of unrepentant immaturity: a compendium of scenes in which Knoxville and his merry band of daredevils (Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Dave England, “Danger” Ehren McGhehey, Jason “Wee Man” Acuña and Preston Lacy are all here; Bam Margera, who was fired during production, is notably absent) injure, mutilate and humiliate themselves and each other via a variety of insanely dangerous and puerile gags. In the history of entertainment, it’s difficult to think of something more wantonly juvenile and reckless, which has naturally earned it a collection of lawsuits that blame it for fans’ copycat behavior, the ire of politicians—most famously, Senator Joe Lieberman, who got MTV to push the TV show’s airdate to 10pm—and the general condemnation of those with little tolerance for bad taste. Jackass is, to many, the epitome of crass teen-macho idiocy, as pointlessly foolish as it is offensive.
Which is all true, except that it obscures the fact that, at its best, Jackass–including its latest hilarious installment–is also great absurdist modern art.
Jackass Forever carries on the troupe’s cinema du penises and buttholes, puke and semen, and electrocution and head injuries, blending over-the-top stunts and practical jokes to uproarious effect. At the center of it is Knoxville, who at a gray-haired 50 years old remains handsome and charismatic enough to be a movie star, even as he keeps willfully engaging in performance-art acts of self-destruction. Along with his regular cohorts, he’s also joined by a new group of fanboy acolytes who grew up on Jackass, and whose loyalty to the brand–and its hazardous ethos–is epitomized by portly Zach Holmes’s chest tattoo of the series’ skull and crossbones-crutches logo. This fifth film consequently serves as both a continuation and a passing-the-torch affair, welcoming a new generation into the fold so it can perpetuate its idols’ timeless legacy of suffering horrific atomic wedgies, slip-and-slide crashes and facial snakebites.
The ravages of time–and far too many blows to the head, neck, chest and below-the-belt areas–are evident on the faces and bodies of Knoxville, Steve-O and Pontius, who now come across as elder statesman of self-inflicted harm. Nonetheless, they’re no less enthusiastic about reentering the fray, driven as before by a knuckle-headed, scatological teen-boy mindset. Crotch shots are therefore plentiful, whether it be during a game show in which incorrect answers result in contestants being smacked in their privates by a mechanical device, or a trio of scenes in which Danger Ehren is whacked in his insufficiently protected balls by professional athletes (UFC fighter Francis Ngannou, NHL star P. K. Subban and softball pitcher Danielle O’Toole). Men will find much to simultaneously laugh and wince about here, highlighted by Steve-O’s decision to allow his dick to be covered in a swarm of bees.
If you enjoy close-ups of mangled and battered phalluses and testicles–and the regions around them–Jackass Forever is most certainly the movie for you. As such, it’s an entry that ably lives up to its forefathers, capturing the gung-ho spirit of wild and inventive dim-bulb inanity that has long defined the series as a whole (that Beavis and Butthead introduced Jackass 3D made perfect sense). Director Jeff Tremaine never fails to capture his subjects’ misery in all its groin-centric glory, employing multiple cameras and super-slow-motion to gaze upon these amazing feats of stupidity, all while structuring his feature as a collection of escalating challenges. Jackass has always been propelled by a jovial desire to up the ante–segueing from home-movie TV madness to grand big-budget (and 3D!) cinematic mayhem, not to mention expanding and intensifying specific gags within each film. and In this case, that impulse is married to a nostalgic interest in revisiting prior, classic stunts that have been resized to XXL proportions.
There’s something exhilarating and liberating about witnessing the Jackass crew wound themselves for our pleasure, and that’s even truer today; in a pandemic era of extreme caution and fear, it’s a welcome relief to watch Knoxville and the rest risk life and limb for the sheer hell of it. That freewheeling attitude has, from the start, enlivened Jackass, as has another element that’s in short supply these days: good-humored social camaraderie. Even more than the stunts themselves, Jackass is a franchise about friendship, and in particular about the adolescent fun of doing dumb things to entertain your buddies, and making them do dumb things to entertain you, and cracking up over everyone’s shared senselessness. At least half of the series’ laughs come from seeing non-participants’ astounded and amused reactions to their compatriots’ exploits. Accordingly, the movies–far more than the numerous TV spin-offs they spawned–play as tributes to the very special ties that bind us to our best friends.
Jackass is a celebration of numbskull fearlessness that expands our understanding of what a human body can take (and how it responds to punishment), forces us to question our capacity for agony, and compels us to ponder what sort of mind might concoct such craziness in the first place. Imbued with go-for-broke punk-metal energy (cue Slayer and The Ramones!), it’s mad mischievousness orchestrated on an alternately small and operatic scale. Sometimes it’s creative (as when the men navigate a gauntlet full of cattle prods and tasers), sometimes it’s simplistic (as when Knoxville allows himself to be run over by a charging bull), but whether indulging in gnarly slapstick, hidden-camera shenanigans, or Rube Goldberg-style torture involving animal bites, genital abuse and flying porta-potties, it mines audaciousness for stomach-churning humor.
It's also, dare I say it, one of the most slyly progressive franchises in film history, normalizing homoeroticism by wallowing in it with unashamed glee. As with those that came before it, Jackass Forever is awash in close-proximity views of its stars’ penises and anuses, thereby preserving an infantile custom that’s both boundary-pushing and non-judgmental. Whether it’s “Party Boy” Pontius bouncing around in a G-string or smooshing his dick between plastic plates to create a game of pubic paddle ball, or Lacy getting repeatedly bludgeoned in the nuts–or, historically speaking, the late Dunn sticking a toy car up his behind and then getting an X-ray–Jackass pinpoints, amplifies and revels in the inherent homoeroticism of guy’s-guy comedy. By shoving it in people’s faces, they’ve forced a generation of dudebros to confront and accept it, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that there’s no overt socio-political intent guiding the series. Punctuated by the first three movies’ closing-note participation of flamboyant, confetti-loving comedian Rip Taylor, it pushes open-minded acceptance through unbridled queer childishness.
To be sure, Jackass has likely inspired some unwise behavior, and it’s not impossible to draw a line between the series’ unruliness and the untimely 2011 drunk-driving death of original star, Dunn. Moreover, its most lowbrow moments are, well, just plain lowbrow (think, every poop-related Dave England bit). Still, the troupe’s fixation on hurt and fear is so intense as to be almost primal, which in turn allows the movies to tap into a very real sense of life’s fragility. Given the advanced age of its headliners, Jackass Forever throws that idea of mortality into even sharper relief, using ridiculousness to remind us of our head-to-toe vulnerability. It’s also an ongoing portrait of physical and mental resilience–a testament to our ability to take a licking (literally and figuratively) and keep on ticking.
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