Director: Jeff Tremaine
Stars: Johnny Knoxville, Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuña, Bam Margera
The Jackass crew have always known how to say hello. Hell, Johnny Knoxville’s cordial greeting has been the long-running series’ key catchphrase, and each of their event movies has opened in expansive, celebratory fashion. Topping the ‘Dickzilla’ riff of Jackass Forever seems nigh-on impossible, and they haven’t, but blasting out ‘I Need a Hero’ while doing a bit aping the classic Jamiroquai ‘Virtual Insanity’ music video… with a roomful of cacti… it’s hard not to feel the intended joie de vivre. The sense of occasion and performance. All the more bittersweet this time out for the sense of earned finality.
Does Jackass know how to end, though? There’s a palpable sense of uncertainty and reluctance about that. Asked candidly while arriving on the Paramount backlot to begin the filming of this fond farewell, Knoxville simply says that he’s sad. That’s not a mode we’re used to from his generation’s king of clowns. It’s clear Knoxville himself has been mandated to stay out of harm’s way following his concussive run-in with a bull from the last instalment, and Forever had the feel of an enduring epitaph already, right down to its title. Jackass: Best and Last is a little like putting a hat on a hat, no?
Having decided to give their legacy a proper send-off, it’s clear that the key creatives were in agreement that a clip-show of their personal faves with some newly filmed and unseen material was the way to go. The sentiment isn’t flawed. The execution underwhelms slightly, however. Credit to Knoxville’s gaggle of clowns, their commitment to the bit – our entertainment at their expense – has never faltered, but they’re getting older now, and the devil-may-care foolishness of old already has one foot out the door. Most of the newly filmed pranks involve electric shocks or pooping things out. There’s a slightly staid quality as though nobody wants to go too far anymore. Sensible*. Relatable. But all the more noticeable when juxtaposed with old footage of Knoxville getting taped into a cardboard box and kicked down a flight of stairs.
The very notion of a clip-show in our present media environment feels cutely antiquated. Something from the team’s origin days of MTV and early seasons of The Simpsons. The selections that they’ve made to celebrate Jackass probably say as much about the team as the stunts themselves, and the term “best” comes to feel especially subjective (was fake-kidnapping Brad Pitt really one of the best things they ever did?). What Best and Last does achieve with great success is a sense of a time. As we flit back and forth from the show’s genesis to the new material and interviews and everything in between, lines on faces appear and disappear, hair colour changes, vocal timbres alter pitch. This is a life’s work, and that hits home. It’s like a ticket to the most preposterous retirement party.
Undeniably, some gold is given the once over. I don’t care how recent Jackass Forever was, the ‘Silence of the Lambs’ bit is some impeccable chaos. Put that shit on a loop. And Best and Last underscores how the slapstick staples never run out of juice. Stepping on a rake or ‘The High Five’ slaps truly never get old. There are scant interview segments with various cast members and career director Jeff Tremaine, but this stuff is surprisingly marginal. The instinct is to keep the pranks coming. In doing so the voice of this old team of friends is muffled somewhat, giving a sense of missed opportunity to turn this into a concerted wake for the franchise. Perhaps inevitably, some of the expanded team member are also marginalised. Rachel Wolfson and Compston ‘Dark Shark’ Wilson are relegated to spectators.
That both represent key minorities within the Jackass crew makes their sidelining conspicuous. Jackass always celebrated inclusion. There’s always been a rainbow flag in the show and, as the decades have ticked by, this troupe have remained beloved particularly by disparate queer communities. The fanbase is one of the healthiest, most utopian one could wish for. Best and Last does reflect why. These guys are and always have been misfits, all in various guises. Footage from January 1998 shows Knoxville going out into some parkland to shoot himself in the chest with a bunch of porno mags stuffed inside some body armour. The roughness of the video accentuates the dangerousness and even suggests a volatile rejection of societal norms. It really verges on the psychologically disturbing. Regardless of their unexpected, accidental success in the aftermath, Jackass has been about outsiderdom from the getgo.
The camaraderie and the love between these professional idiots is the real showstopper, then. Nothing in the world has as much glee as Knoxville’s face when a prank comes off. When a naked Chris Pontius succeeds in a dick-flapping high-jump, the ringleader is moved to bound onto the crashmat to embrace him like an excited puppy. And, in extended footage of the stunt that hospitalised Knoxville during Jackass Forever you can see the exact second his cheering compadres switch to heartfelt dread and concern. This fond farewell is to those feelings, not just a recap of the stunts that came out of them.
Back in their oversized shopping trolley for the finale, the troupe career through rigged explosions to the wistful tune of ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and I was reminded just how good these guys are with a needle drop. “Keep smiling through. Just like you always do”. Thank you, guys. Now get me a complete boxset to binge.
*relatively sensible
The Lost Highway Hotel 