STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday morning
Irving Zisman's (Johnny Knoxville) wife of many years dies, which is a bit of a bummer, only for him to find his white trash daughter hoisting his young grandson on him, leading to an outrageous cross country ride where Irving finds himself struggling to dispose of his wife's body after a misunderstanding.
One of the characters who stood out from the sketch laden Jackass films most memorably was the 'Bad Grandpa', an outrageously mischievous old duffer whose very presence was so absurd as to crack you up. It struck me as a great idea to give him his own feature length film, even if the pressure was on to keep the laugh quotient up and not let the formula wear itself out. This film version doesn't fail on either count, a full blooded assault on the senses that throws taste, decency and any sort of political correctness to the dogs (child neglect has never been so funny.)
The plot is as apathetic as to be expected, just something it needed to stop it becoming just a messy selection of clips, and from this we're left to cackle on as the title character's exploits become progressively more outrageous and unbelievable. It's a lazy, ready made approach to comedy that does get more laughs by being as puerile and juvenile as it can be, rather than by giving us anything really inspired or thought out, but anyone who goes to see it is probably already well aware of this. It adopts the same approach as Sascha Baron Cohen's film versions of his characters, where the camera follows the main character on his journey around the States, and as such there is an attempt to give the film some heart and sentimental scenes, but they never over shadow the main aim of the game or feel like they're overly tugging at the heart strings.
Everything it says on the tin, and you wouldn't want it any other way. ****
Irving Zisman's (Johnny Knoxville) wife of many years dies, which is a bit of a bummer, only for him to find his white trash daughter hoisting his young grandson on him, leading to an outrageous cross country ride where Irving finds himself struggling to dispose of his wife's body after a misunderstanding.
One of the characters who stood out from the sketch laden Jackass films most memorably was the 'Bad Grandpa', an outrageously mischievous old duffer whose very presence was so absurd as to crack you up. It struck me as a great idea to give him his own feature length film, even if the pressure was on to keep the laugh quotient up and not let the formula wear itself out. This film version doesn't fail on either count, a full blooded assault on the senses that throws taste, decency and any sort of political correctness to the dogs (child neglect has never been so funny.)
The plot is as apathetic as to be expected, just something it needed to stop it becoming just a messy selection of clips, and from this we're left to cackle on as the title character's exploits become progressively more outrageous and unbelievable. It's a lazy, ready made approach to comedy that does get more laughs by being as puerile and juvenile as it can be, rather than by giving us anything really inspired or thought out, but anyone who goes to see it is probably already well aware of this. It adopts the same approach as Sascha Baron Cohen's film versions of his characters, where the camera follows the main character on his journey around the States, and as such there is an attempt to give the film some heart and sentimental scenes, but they never over shadow the main aim of the game or feel like they're overly tugging at the heart strings.
Everything it says on the tin, and you wouldn't want it any other way. ****