Jackass The Movie (2002)
Directed by Jeff Tremaine
Written by Documentary
Starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Ryan Dunn, Bam Margera
Release Date October 25th, 2002
Published October 24th, 2002
Whether you like it or whether you don’t, MTV’s Jackass is a huge hit. The offensively stupid TV show, and now feature film, have tapped an audience of retarded teenage boys who think lighting farts is the height of comedy. Comedy for those who think Pauly Shore compares favorably with Charlie Chaplin. Yet there is something that even a wannabe intellectual like myself can find entertaining. The fact that these brain dead morons in the audience will immediately run home and try stunts of their own and get severely injured is very entertaining to me. My hope is that they will suffer serious groin injuries so as to prevent their ever procreating.
Johnny Knoxville and his band of stunt monkeys have no real format for the feature film jackass, it’s merely an uncensored version of stunts they performed on the TV show. Stunts they couldn’t do on TV like, shooting fireworks out of their butts or tearing the pants off a fat guy without having to put a black box over the result. Oh and I doubt MTV would allow them to show one of the crew shoving a matchbox car up his rectum and then going for X-rays. It’s actually kind of funny to see the doctor's reaction to the X-ray but having to watch the insertion of the car is a little too much.
Do not be mistaken, someone will die attempting to do a Jackass stunt. But I urge you not to blame the movie. It is not the fault of this film if some idiot teenager tries some stupid stunt and kills himself, that is merely natural selection at work. In fact it should be pointed out that many of the stunts, save for the fireworks, are rather cost prohibitive to any not bankrolled by Paramount Pictures.
Lawsuits from parents upset about the film's influence over its audience are being written even before their children pull the stunts. Reactionary elements of our society such as the Parents Television Council are ready to pounce the second they perceive a Jackass related injury. Indeed the censorship arm of this country is swooping over this film like vultures waiting for the first teenager to die so they can claim their moral superiority and try to eliminate this film and anything else they deem to be dangerous and or offensive.
And that is why I highly recommend jackass: the movie, simply to piss off the PTC and their ilk. See this film as a symbolic way of telling the censors of this country to go f#*@ themselves.
I had to laugh as I awaited my showing of the film, as a woman complained that her son was going to see this film. As the manager explained to her that all precautions are being taken to prevent anyone underage from seeing the film, the woman explained that those precautions would not keep her 18 year old son from seeing the film and attempting the stunts and getting hurt. The apoplectic manager did the only thing a rational person could do at this point, handing the woman a complaint card that he would gladly send to corporate headquarters. I think that exchange is probably funnier than anything I saw in the movie, but that a movie could inspire such a conversation is exactly why I like and recommend jackass.
