Review of Jackass: The Movie (2002) by Christiaanbacon T — 26 May 2009

Physical humor has always been a major staple of comedy, tracing its roots all the way back to the vaudeville stage shows, and continuing on to legendary entertainers such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and the Three Stooges.

It's been clearly evident that, no matter what your age, seeing someone being injured, under the right circumstances, can be very funny. But with the aforementioned performers, the seemingly dangerous physical gags were choreographed as to ensure the actors' safety.

After all, these guys don't really want to be injured in the name of comedy, do they? Well, luckily, Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of fools do. And boy, do they do it with enthusiasm. Adapted from the wildly popular MTV comedy stunt series of the same name, "Jackass" isn't a movie in the traditional sense, but rather, like its television predecessor, a series of guerrilla-like stunts, pranks, and frathouse-style shenanigans that alternate between being crude, wince-inducing, silly, incredibly dangerous, and outright disgusting.

Obviously shot on a low budget, "Jackass" retains the low-fi charm of the TV series while breaking free of the censorship restraints the television show faced, allowing the movie to go buck wild with the profanity, bodily functions, and excessive male nudity.

Though incredibly stupid and juvenile, "Jackass" nevertheless makes for great cathartic comedy, keeping the audience's eyes on these goofy, high-testosterone guys abusing and pranking each other in a brotherly, almost endearing fashion.

And some moments are so unapologetically gleeful that you can't help but double over laughing, including Bam Margera's successful attempt at making his mother say "fuck", some of the guys running amok in Tokyo wearing panda suits, a camo-clad Knoxville blowing air horns on a golf course just as golfers are on their downswing, and Ryan Dunn sticking a toy car in, ahem, a certain orifice all to capture the reaction of the doctors administering the X-Ray of said bodily area.

In all, it's a guilty pleasure at best, but it easily garners more laughs than the usual cookie-cutter professional "comedies" churned out by Hollywood. A masochistic, moronic, but ultimately hilarious outing.

Think of it as the modern-day Three Stooges... on acid.