“Bad Grandpa” Kind of Good


Not your ordinary road trip movie.
Not your ordinary road trip movie.

I gave Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa my virgin eyes. Yes, it’s true–– I’d never been on the Jackass bus before. What can I say, I’m not an intellectual.

Well, I had great expectations for this movie and it was an enjoyable enough ride. Some good laughs, nice cringe moments and awkwardness abounds.

But what hurt the film was the story’s linear structure: the conceit of a narrative storyline of Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) taking his eight year-old grandson, Billy (Jackson Nicoll) on a car ride from Nebraska to Raleigh so that the kid’s deadbeat dad can get the bounty of $600/month government dole.

Yes, Knoxville and Nicoll can act and have great chemistry, but why have the artifice of them not knowing they’re both shills to unsuspecting bystanders and playing their characters in character against one another? It didn’t make any sense. Were they trying for poignant emotion in a movie where scrotal humor plays large?

Having this artificial narrative played straight seemed odd. Perhaps the Jackass crew should consider the eternal wisdom of Conan O’Brien who keeps the following advice posted in his office: “Funny man, be funny.”

Oh well, the movie’s making big bucks at the box office, so I’ll just keep my big gob shut.


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