Film Review - Jackass: Best and Last
Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures Australia.
Jackass: Best and Last firmly establishes itself by opening with a HD restoration of Johnny Knoxville’s first stunt prior to Jackass back in 1998. This stunt, previously only viewable via a grainy bootleg, entails Knoxville–or P.J. as he was still calling himself at this time–donning a bulletproof vest stashed with porno magazines and shooting himself in the chest at point blank with a small firearm, emerging relatively unscathed. Knoxville’s uniquely American showmanship here is immediate, dressed like and performing a stunt Hunter S. Thompson in nature. It is no wonder that MTV gave a firm ‘no’ to its inclusion in Jackass’ first iteration as a TV show.
From the showmanship of Buster Keaton and Evel Knievel, to a commentary on American masculinity, Jackass’ breadth of influence has always been founded in its comical stunts and pranks, and Knoxville’s entourage of (un)professional stunt performers. By establishing what is essentially the ‘origin story’ of Jackass with Knoxville’s pistol stunt, Best and Last begins to intercut between the past and present. If this structure of previously-unseen archival footage and new stunts, talking head interviews and famous highlights from previous films sounds a bit messy and haphazard, it is. Best and Last is packaged with a whole host of uninspired editing decisions, but in its relative incompleteness the film somewhat finds its footing in sheer bittersweet, nostalgic sentiment.
The new stunts featured in Best and Last are incredibly hit-and-miss, with the highlight being The Escape Room From Hell, in which core cast members Ehren “Danger” McGhehey, Dave England and Wee Man subject themselves to a series of three violent escape rooms. Culminating in one room in which Danger Ehren is strapped into an electric chair,his ultimate fate is fittingly shot like a Sam Raimi or Saw film; frantic and loud, life-threatening/affirming. Most, if not all of the new stunts are shot on the backlot of the studio and whilst they are on-the-whole funny they certainly feel like cutting room material. Had they been included in any other Jackass film they would be few-and-far-between in number. These new stunts really do a lot to show the disparate utilisation of the new cast: Sean “Poopies” McInerney, Zach Holmes, Rachel Wolfson, and Jasper and Compston “Dark Shark” Wilson. Poopies and Zach get frequent screentime in this, with Poopies’ lip filler stunt serving as a useful way to mark if we are watching new footage or unused footage from the previous entry Jackass Forever or its spinoff 4.5. The other three, especially Wolfson, are hardly included, and Best and Last unfortunately does very little to convey that these five would be capable of carrying any future installments. Perhaps this doesn’t matter though, as Best and Last is more of a sobering reflection on finality, than anything else.
Jackass has always felt more vaudevillian than documentarian, until now. Numerous scenes in the film feature Knoxville earnestly breaking into tears at the prospect of answering the question: will this be the last one? His endearing friendship with the cast – especially Chris Pontius and Steve-O – is truly felt, especially in a scene where Knoxville lovingly embraces a nude Pontius on the ground after he successfully executes a Fosbury flop over a high jump pole. Likewise, the inclusion of archival footage celebrates their loving comradery, and it’s difficult to not get emotional over the inclusion of previous cast members Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn. Though Margera and Dunn do not feature in any of Best and Last’s new stunts, the film acknowledges how firmly entrenched their bond is to the mythology of the series. Dunn’s death from a car accident in 2011 after the release of Jackass 3D deeply affected the entire cast and crew, but none more so than his best friend Margera, whose behaviour resulted in his firing from Jackass Forever during production. As much of Best and Last’s archival footage is Margera and Dunn, including cut scenes of Margera in the fantastically elaborate Silence of the Lambs prank in Forever and the classic prank Toy Car – in which the baby-faced Margera and Dunn lube up a toy car to put up Dunn’s rectum – their absence is highlighted with the new dynamic of the crew.
The most poignant summation of what does work in Best and Last is the inclusion of the previously-unseen first take of Knoxville’s dangerous bull stunt from Forever: The Magic Trick. The second take, which is what we see in Forever, nearly killed Knoxville via a brain hemorrhage, and the existence of a previous take casts a whole new light on the sequence and the morbid decisions made by director Jeff Tremaine in service of good spectacle. Perhaps this is the tension through which Jackass is at its most thematically resonant: the belief that their careers as stuntmen could end at any moment, one way or another.
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Jackass: Best and Last is screening in cinemas from Thursday the 2nd of July. For tickets and more info, click here.