Cert – 18, Run-time – 1 hour 32 minutes, Director – Jeff Tremaine
The Jackass crew look back at over 25 years together with one final round of stunts, pain and laughs.
“This is the kind of extreme s**t those extreme dudes don’t even think about” says Chris Pontius looking at the scale of Jackass 3D’s Poo Cocktail Supreme. It’s one of the revisited segments in the fifth and final outing for the cast under this banner; and there’s no denying that the gross-out laughs are heightened on the big screen.
Thankfully, Best And Last isn’t just a clip show – throwback segments also feature new footage, such as Jackass Forever’s highlight Silence Of The Lambs now featuring Bam Margera’s experience after he was largely cut from the film. There are plenty of new painful stunts and sequences on display as the main cast say goodbye after over 25 years of admitted stupidity.
The new sequences may not be anything death-defying, focusing more on the crude and aforementioned gross-out – a laxative-enhanced round of Twister is one not be watched shortly after eating – but the fact the main cast are mostly in their early to mid-50s is acknowledged. Steve-O leads much of this kind of stunt, featuring early on in a robot-provided prostate exam, and his bond with those around him is clear. However, not all cast members get much to do in the edit, new faces such as Rachel Wolfson and Jasper have nothing to do but stand and watch while staples Dave England and Preston Lacy feel rarely involved.
Yet, while this makes for a reflection for series lead Johnny Knoxville, and director Jeff Tremaine, with unseen footage also glimpsed of some of the initial stunts from the TV show, there are intentionally only hints of emotion amongst the laughter. There’s a slightly more intimate (of course taking on different meanings for Jackass) nature to the stunts; closer and less spectacle based. Calling back to the early TV days, just with a small budget being made the most of. Someone being hit in a private area or given an electric shock can illicit just as much laughter as being propelled sky high.
As was observed widely around the release of 2022’s Forever, this is a franchise that’s long showed a range of figures laughing with, rather than at, each other. It spreads throughout the cinema, even in lightly attended screenings, and you feel a part of the group. Through laughs, gasps and audible winces. You see the worry for their friends before everything is shown to be alright and the smiles grow. There’s a healthy friendship on display from multiple angles, and the joy comes through in the very final sequence which recalls the giant shopping trolley opening of the first feature outing for the group (the only film in the series I’ve not got on with, finding a cruelty in some of the segments).
Fans will be far from disappointed, those who know this isn’t for them will almost certainly remain that way. Even with smaller scale segments the core of friendship and laughter is once again on full display, even more so with age. A welcome light lookback with plenty of laughs in the newer segments, too. Jackass closes as a true cinema audience experience.
More scaled-back, but in doing so highlighting the friendship and laughter amongst the gross-out stunts on display. This is a well-measured mix of old and new that closes 25 years of embraced pain and stupidity with one of strongest outings for the Jackass crew.
Just A Little Bit Random 