Jackass: Bad Grandpa

By: Robert Murphy

We all have that one member of the family who is really off and our parents tell us to stay away from, well unfortunately for the kid in Bad Grandpa, he doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter as Billy (Jackson Nicoll) travels to his father’s home with his dear grandfather Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville). Yes that’s right, Johnny Knoxville dawns the old man make-up once more and takes on the role of Irving Zismen who is a foul mouthed, 83 year old horn dog that just lost his wife and is free and on the prowl for a fresh faced GILF. But his plans are cut short as his drug addict daughter is sent to jail and leaves Irving with his 8 year old grandson and now needs to take him across country to his dad’s so he doesn’t get in the way of his new girl hunt. With the help of plenty of hidden cameras, the two set out on their adventure trying to appear as a normal granddad and grandson, being lude, crude and all around hilarious, with sweet granny crammed in the trunk.

What follows are a series of Jackass-like stunts with Irving running around looking for action wherever he can and leaving Billy alone for extended periods of time and allowing him to roam around large cities by himself. This provides for unique comedy on both ends for the two as Billy roams, either looking for his drunken grandfather or sets out looking for someone to fill the role of his new father, he lets out things that you’d never think an 8 year old would say. One point Billy is looking for Irving after he had been out all night and he stops at a local adult book store hoping to find him and proceeds to call the scantily dressed worker a stripper by the name of Cinnamon. Then on the opposite end of things we see Irving, who proceeds to take the “hit them hard” approach and lays on his thickest lines to try and hook up with anything and everything that moves. One moment where Irving sets out to find a new sugar grandma was particularly enjoyable as he goes into a BINGO hall to try and find someone to call his own, this just tickled me.

But the Billy and Irving don’t remain separated for the whole movie as Irving realizes that Billy is quite a useful asset in attracting young and beautiful ladies. Soon the two are inseparable as they find they share the same sense of humor for the most part (go figure sense Johnny Knoxville’s basically a giant kid) and a touching bond begins to form. This would be even more touching if we didn’t all know that it was Jackass film and they were deliberately being cheesy for the sake of being cheesy but still it was a cute moment to have. Truly the film succeeds where the Jackass films failed for me and that is there was a definite flow with all the pranks and stunts that were preformed throughout the film and that’s what you need. Jackass worked far better as a TV show as opposed to a film and now we have the humor of Jackass but with coherency, don’t get me wrong there are still lulls in the story but they are few and far in between.

Both Johnny Knoxville and Jackson Nicoll are on high notes in their roles of Irv and Billy in Bad Grandpa, Jackson plays the innocent faced kid who is secretly a hilarious, foul mouthed boy underneath along with Knoxille’s already famous way of making an old guy gross and inappropriate, was great to watch. Each crash, ball sag and one liner will have you laughing in your seats and will make you question your own moral fiber along the way.

Good:

-Knoxville and the Jackass crew does it again

-Nicoll plays the perfect role of innocent faced boy/foul mouth

-Completely outrageous stunts throughout

Bad:

-A few lulls but not too many to make major complaints

Scully Rating: 8.5 out of 10