Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Fall is Oscar season, and riding the wave of Oscar-worthy movies coming out this month is Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Makeup artists convert stuntman-turned-thespian Johnny Knoxville into an old-looking man as Knoxville demonstrates his acting chops, playing against type in a series of comical misadventures.

Your go, Nick.

Nick:  Even when Johnny Knoxville is in bad movies he still ends up being entertaining and this film is pretty good.

Dustin: I knew nothing about this film going in. I knew Johnny Knoxville played an old man, and that was it. If I took the time to indicate the movies I’m not interested in on Rotten Tomatoes, this probably would have been one of them. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Bad Grandpa.

For those of you who don’t know, Bad Grandpa was shot mostly with hidden cameras with a loose script involving a grandpa driving cross country to deliver his daughter’s son to the boy’s father. This was really just a premise to set up the jokes. I was immediately reminded of Borat. This is easily the best hidden camera movie since Sacha Baron Cohen’s sleeper hit.

Nick: How many hidden camera movies are there for that to seem like a positive statement?

Dustin: Bruno and the other Jackass movies, to name them all.

Nick: Although this film is funny it does a poor job of creating different setups for their characters to overcome. It felt as if in every setup Knoxville does something crude, people act, then he reacts and then Knoxville and the kid drive to another place for the exact same situation to come about. It bored me at times.

Dustin: I mostly didn’t care about the story, recognizing it for what it was. I said as we left the theater I mainly judge a comedy based on how much I laugh. You said comedy was subjective.

Nick: Creating laughter is the most important part, but an interesting story helps make a better film. We all find different comedians funny such as Will Ferrell, who I will never tire of, but I know a lot of people who were sick of him long ago.

Dustin: People might have different tastes, but I have been thinking of that subject today while I was at work, and I think one could make an argument that comedy is not subjective. Just some people have bad tastes. If you wanted to be boring, you could deconstruct what makes a joke funny, and why some jokes fall flat.

For example, recent Adam Sandler movies don’t have any jokes. He presents a strange character and you’re supposed to laugh because they’re strange. It’s the lowest form of comedy. If you laugh at that, you’re a moron. That’s not subjective.

Bad Grandpa relies mostly on irony. The viewer knows they're watching Johnny Knoxville set up a real person to be in an uncomfortable situation. We know something they don’t, so their reaction is funny to us. That’s science.

Nick: I still think your argument agrees that it’s subjective. If one thinks anything Sandler does is funny, including silly voices and poop jokes, then that means that style of humor is meant for them. Comedy definitely has high and low forms, but just because you enjoy the low doesn’t mean its not subjective, but may possibly mean “you might be a redneck.”

Dustin: Humor is also cultural, but that is beyond the scope of this review. I’ll just say when I lived in Japan, I found their sense of humor juvenile, and was frustrated they didn’t understand my deadpan humor. When I read the funny pages in the Spanish-language newspaper, I’m shocked at how flat-out misogynistic the jokes placed next to children’s puzzles are.

What worked for you in this movie?

Nick: The relationship between Johnny Knoxville and the little kid, Billy (Jackson Nicoll), was a highlight but also Nicoll telling random men that he “loves them” and wants them to be his “new daddy.”

Dustin: The kid was quite talented. There was definitely a dynamic between him and Knoxville. At times, when they were ad libbing, he seemed to make Knoxville laugh for real.

Nick: Nicoll has acted in The Fighter, Arthur, and Fun Size. I’ve seen the first two and didn’t recognize him, and those were some large scale films.

Dustin: It’s a bit pointless to describe the jokes in a comedy as they never come across as funny on paper, and it also makes for spoilers. But is there anything else you’d like to add about this movie?

Nick: The last 15 minutes of the film might have been the least funny, but they at least had a somewhat heartwarming ending.

Did you feel it?

Dustin: I hoped you didn’t notice me wiping a tear from my eye.