It was a shock to see Johnny Knoxville in 2022’s Jackass Forever, 12 years after Jackass 3D, sporting natural silver-gray hair. The intrepid leader of the Jackass crew finally served up a reminder that while he, Steve-O, and the rest of the loveably loony band of misfits have survived more death-defying stunts than Evel Knievel, time comes for us all.
That earlier film introduced us to a bunch of new Jackass-ers, including Sean “Poopies” McInerney, Zach Holmes, and Rachel Wolfson, all of whom return again in Jackass: Best and Last. But if you were expecting the four years between the two films to lead to the crew’s elder statesmen taking even more of a back seat, that’s fortunately not the case.
Still reeling from the nasty concussion he got from being flipped on his head by a bull in Jackass Forever, Knoxville does serve as more of a master of ceremonies here, gleefully cheering on, or taunting, his compatriots from behind the mic. But while he may hold a subordinate position this time around, he still gets knocked around a few times by a ram while carrying a birthday cake and takes a hard shot to the groin from a giant carnival hammer.
If the last film suggested that Knoxville and company were more than ready to pass the torch to a younger generation, Jackass: Best and Last represents a course correction of sorts, as it proceeds as a celebration of the gonzo accomplishments of the original core group. We see a number of Jackass stunts from years past—several of which never aired, mostly for legal reasons—including some with Ryan Dunn, who died in a car crash in 2011, and Bam Margera, who was fired during the filming of Jackass Forever. Thus, even those who’ve moved on from the group remain deranged brothers in arms with those who continue to carry the torch.
The flashbacks at times lend a surprisingly touching emotional undercurrent to the film. On a few occasions, Knoxville is caught off guard and holds back tears, while another cast member breaks down before a stunt, lamenting that “this might be the last stunt we ever do.” This series has always been essentially about male bonding, and as dismissive as some members might be—Chris Pontius quips, “I’m not in touch with my emotions”—the finality of this entry is a reminder to both the Jackass crew and the audience that all good things must come to an end.
This wallow in nostalgia and sentimentality, though, isn’t a sign that the boys have grown soft. Jackass has always set out to entertain through the wildest of gross-out, self-flagellating tactics, and the film proves that even a tinge of melancholy won’t stop Steve-O from letting things go up his butt, from a thick, metal robot finger to a ping-pong ball, or everyone else from enduring electrical shocks and smacks to their genitals out of a twisted, implacable desire to walk the line between entertaining their audience and forcing them to cover their eyes in disgust.
None of the new material in Jackass: Best and Last is exactly top tier. But even on their way to hanging up their spurs, the crew is as willing to push boundaries as ever. As evidenced by a gut-churning, post-laxative game of Twister, Knoxville and his fellow Jackass-ers remain the poster children of anarchic lunacy. And whatever legacy they do leave behind—one of symbolizing American cultural decline or one of literally suffering for their art—Jackass: Best and Last proves that through the series’s unhinged show of depravity and devotion, Jackass will, for better or worse, endure as a symbol of America in the first quarter of the 21st century.
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