“Jackass Forever” is an unrelenting and essential cinematic experience that transports an audience through a time machine to the primal ferociousness of citizens seated at the Roman colosseum.
Seeing these ageing, bogus gladiators back being shot out of cannons, in horrifying torture dungeons, being tormented by apex predators and getting SO MANY savage hits to the scrotum made the opening night audience, and I laugh ’til we hurt, made us plead irrationally to the screen for the boys to stop, made us wince in phantom pain to many parts of our body (especially the groin) and made us dry heave.
And when “Jackass “Forever” ended, we had happy and grateful tears in our eyes – the boys were back, and we didn’t know how much we needed them until now.
Director Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville (occasionally dressed in full Killgore regalia – Robert Duvall’s iconic napalm loving lunatic from Apocalypse Now), Steve-O, Chris’ Party Boy’ Pontius, Jason’ Weeman Acuña, Ehren McGhehey, Dave England and Preston Lacy are back with a new generation of Jackasses and a host of new celebrity ring-ins for the last death-defying dance.
This time around, there’s noticeable mileage on our dudes. Knoxville, Steve-O, McGhehey, England Pontius, ‘Weeman’, Lacy have all seen better days. Injury, addiction, all-around HARD living: is etched in every line on their faces. Knoxville’s hair has had a Steve Martin-esque grey make-over that feels like his body exclaiming – “how are you STILL doing this?”.
“Jackass Forever” begins with a city is under attack. The franchise soldiers, old and new, rallied together against the assault. The implied giant Kaiju monster/Shin Godzilla – of course, because Jackass – turns out the cosplaying member and beanbag of Pontius. The 96 minute run time is an onslaught of awe and scorn.
With eleven years and a reported decade of Knoxville compiling a wish-list of the crudest, insane and torturous scenarios yet, “Jackass Forever” doesn’t feel like a celebrity golf tournament – it’s a kamikaze flight. More extreme physical harm, more explosive launching of bodies, the most horrifying animal encounters and in touchstone style, the entire crew (and peanut gallery) relishing every moment with howling cackles.
The new additions to the team are nothing short of inspired. Comedian Rachel Wolfson joyfully puts her tongue in a taser and kisses a scorpion tail. Big boy Zach Holmes inherits the hefty mantle of Preston Lacy and gladly throws his sizeable body into all sorts of chaos.
Sean ‘Poopies’ McInerney is cut from the same skater dirtbag ilk as dearly departed Ryan Dunn, desperate to rise to the call of being anointed by his heroes. And Jasper Dolphin and his Dad Compston ‘Darkshark’ Wilson have some of the sweetest moments in the wake of gracelessly confronting their most harrowing phobias. What you expect from our stalwarts, they deliver in spades, with even more reckless abandon. This is their final outing, and they’ll leave nothing on the field.
The absolute MVP of “Jackass Forever” is ‘Danger’ Ehren McGhehey, who experiences some of the most unsettling and downright abject punishment in the series. Tears of sympathy and respect are the only appropriate reaction. If McGhehey is still fertile, he should be profiled in every reputable medical journal in the world.
The inevitable question is, why do more? What does this series have left to say? It’s a series that has never been about fame, pay-checks or notoriety: it’s a bunch of guys who time and again are willing to put their erectile function, their deepest fears, their health on the line.
It’s akin to the reason that we love Tom Cruise. The man will risk his life for our entertainment. But, while Cruise’s brand of chaotic mass entertainment usually requires him to be the sole crash test dummy for the latest death-defying stunt – the Jackass boys are our team of friends whose kinship under fire continues to endear. There’s such a purity to all the ways they hold their friends’ feet to the fire (figuratively in this one) and hold their hand through the worst self-inflicted experiences of their collective lives.
They’re doing this for us. They’re facing their darkest fears; they’re experiencing physical and psychological trauma. Hospitalisation is a damned badge of honour. In a world so sanitised by augmented reality and digital trickery, knowing in your bones that this risk is real and that all it brings us, the audience, is an unbridled rapturous escape. Eternally grateful to Jackass and “Jackass Forever”.
