If you're not a fan of the TV show of the same name, you'd better skip this one. "jackass: the movie," is just like the popular MTV show, but way, way, way more over the top.
Johnny Knoxville and the guys get together for a surprisingly long hour and 37 minutes of mind-numbingly insane stunts and gross-out gags. With an international background including Japan, the guys let it all hang loose (usually way too loose) in this collection of skits.
There are too many stunts to ruin the movie by sharing just a couple: In one, Steve-o shoots bottle rockets out of his butt. In another, Knoxville rents a car then destroys it in a demolition derby, only to return it to the dealer completely totaled. Later, he boxes a round with Butterbean in a Japanese department store, leaving him bloody and concussed. He also volunteers to be shot in the gut with a "less lethal" bullet, resulting in a giant, purple welt.
Not wacky enough for you? The gang also attaches electrodes to their nipples and other appendages and cranks up the juice. Steve-o and Chris Pontius stuff shrimp down their shorts and go swimming with sharks. Steve-o (probably the craziest of the bunch) also stuffs a piece of meat into his jock strap and dangles dangerously over a crocodile pit. He volunteers to get a tattoo while riding through the outback in a bouncy Hummer driven by Henry Rollins. Ouch.
And that's the funny stuff. The rest is just disgusting, usually involving some form of excrement or vomit. When Steve-o snorts the wasabi into his nose at the sushi bar, it's tolerable. Eating the snowcone made of pee isn't. At best, the gross stuff is the "sorbet" between stunt dishes, designed to cleanse the palate. All right, it's just really disgusting.
Combine this insanity with a healthy dose of male nudity and F bombs and you've just about got it. Clearly, this film is not for everybody, especially the kids. The R rating, in fact, seems a little generous. "jackass: the movie" is designed for the type of guys who loved "Beavis and Butthead." It's crude, ridiculous, disgusting and really dangerous -- but it's also absolutely hysterical.
"jackass: the movie" is playing in theaters in Milwaukee now.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
