Bad Grandpa

very nice

This movie shouldn't exist. It's all the definition of a bad movie.

source: Bad Grandpa

In a world overrun by forgettable, banal reality television, Jackass has distinguished itself as a franchise with unexpected staying power. Who would have thought that a television show about pulling pranks on unsuspecting members of the public would go on to dominate the silver screen as well? That's precisely what Johnny Knoxville and his compatriots have done, however. Bad Grandpa marks the Jackass crew's fourth foray into the realm of feature films. The movie is itself more ambitious than its predecessors, betting that one character - an apparently doddering 86-year-old man - can carry an actual plot and an enormous arsenal of pranks. Surprisingly, it's a gamble that pays off: Bad Grandpa is frequently as funny as it is in bad taste. The ostensible plot of it all goes something like this: Irving Zisman (Knoxville) is saddled with his grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll) when his flaky daughter is sent to prison and his wife Ellie (Catherine Keener - yes, really!) passes away. Resolving to palm his grandson off to his ne'er-do-well son-in-law, Irving embarks on a road trip across America - an adventure that takes them from strip club to diner, from funeral to beauty pageant, and everything in between. Along the way, they meet people from all walks of life: most of them unsuspecting, several of them kind, all of them pretty good sports. Much of the thrill of watching Bad Grandpa comes from knowing that it is a hidden-camera comedy - one that draws its greatest laughs and amusement from people who have no clue that Irving isn't actually a senior citizen. Many of the pranks border on the tasteless (Irving gets a crucial body part caught in a vending machine, grandpa and grandson engage in a flatulence contest in a diner with disastrous results), but the horrified looks on the faces of innocent passers-by make it all work. There are even some moments of inspired comic genius: chiefly, the set-pieces that take place in a strip club and at a beauty pageant. (To spoil you any further, dear reader, would be criminal.) It takes a pair of seasoned performers not to crack and give the game away. Knoxville, of course, has years of experience and bodily injury under his belt, and he is astonishingly good at playing a bawdy old man with very few social (and some might say moral) filters. The great surprise is Nicoll, a child with the most perfectly deadpan of faces - he's hilariously convincing whether he's asking a complete stranger to adopt him or re-enacting a scenario reminiscent of Abigail Breslin's wildly inappropriate grind-bump dance in Little Miss Sunshine. This is - evidently - very far from great cinema, even though director Jeff Tremaine does actually manage to sneak a little more sentiment and plot into the film than you might expect. But great cinema does not always equate into a fun, brainless night out at the cinema - which Bad Grandpa, if you set your expectations as low as they can go, will almost indubitably provide you.

The Review: Wednesday night, 2-for-1, Kevin Bacon adverts, 25 minutes of commercials, lights dim down (small black mark on the centre of the screen which you can choose have distract you, especially if the picture is white) and – boom – Bad Grandpa's first reel rolls and there's an ei9ght year-old kid in a doctor's waiting room telling an unsuspecting, genuine punter, that his mum is a crack *. The unsuspecting woman shrugs her shoulders and isn't sure how to respond. She's also unaware that she's being filmed. In fact, everyone who isn't the eight year-old stooge (Jackson Nicoll) and Bad Grandpa himself (Johnny Knoxville) is not in on the game. Did you see Borat? Okay, you get the general idea. And the general idea – i.e., the interaction between Nicoll and Knoxville – sadly, are the weakest moments in this 85 minute movie. By turns shocking and hilarious, but for long, long stretches merely tedious and long-drawn-out. The 'story' goes that Knoxville needs to transport his eight year-old grandson across country to his deadbeat father, who's only too happy to take him because of the child benefit pay out. They carry Grandpa's wife's carcass in the trunk of the car and hightail it across – wherever. And when the public aren't involved, God damn is this tedious stuff. Why? Because the film's glue – its narrative – is unfunny because both participants are in on the same joke we are. Funnily enough, this is where the Jackass movies got it right. It had no pretensions that it was anything other than a series of skits. Bad Grandpa (which reunites director Jeff Tremaine, Knoxville and Spike Jonze in their usual roles) hasn't understood why Borat has worked, and made a movie out of the least funny parts of their Jackass movies. If Bad Grandpa was a series of skits without all the faffing around, then it'd have been way funnier. The central conceit just doesn't work – as evidenced by the other audience members, who sat for prolonged periods of time in stony silence. The funeral scene near the beginning of the movie is so desperately unfunny, as is the drink machine "incident" – I started to wonder if the film had crossed the line into downright surrealism. Perhaps this film is best viewed as a psychological and sociological experiment. Some of the reactions aren't funny at all, but rather worrying – a woman overreacts, we suspect, to Knoxville's prank at his in-house sale. A fascinating reaction, in my view. But hardly funny. That's not to say that the film isn't funny. I think I laughed about four, maybe five times throughout the movie. Dickhouse and MTV productions, also responsible for Jackasses 1, 2, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8, 3, 3.5, 3×15-8=16 etcis famous for including behind-the-scenes material during the closing credits. In Bad Grandpa, we're treated to Knoxville and co. revealing that they were 'punking' the public, and their reactions to it. While this is a nice touch, it's not terribly funny. And Bad Grandpa doesn't come close to Borat's crescendos, or the sheer balls-out lunacy and bravery of Bruno. If you're really planning on a trip to the cinema for this one, then see it for the wonderfully stoic performance from newcomer Jackson Nicoll. How on Earth he has the mettle and temerity to keep a straight face during the thick of the pranks is astounding. I'm tempted not to spoil any of it, but the trailer for the movie has done a damned fine job of doing just that – so if you want the skinny on the best of the funny, then just head on over to YouTube and save 82 minutes Reviewed By: Andrew MacKay Join the debate on our Facebook Group (www.facebook.com/groups/Filmsploitation) or on our website (www.thefilmpodcast.co.uk)

Johnny Knoxville is back! Unfortunately, though, he goes solo for the first time in 'Jackass' history in this brilliant spin- off film, 'Bad Grandpa'. The film revolves around Jackass' horny pensioner, Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville), who is given the task of driving his impressionable 8 year old grandson, Billy (Jackson Nicoll) across America to get him to his deadbeat father when his mother is jailed. In a change of the original formula, this instalment of the hidden- camera prank series sees a very loose narrative that is accompanied by several 'Jackass' stunts and pranks. The story that the film makers used is an excellent way to get the two main characters on the move and exchanging witty dialogue and get in a lot of awkward scrapes. The character of Irving was always very one- note, in the first three 'Jackass' movies he was just a grumpy, horny, inappropriate old man who shoplifted and got into petty arguments with enraged passers-by, and he's pretty much the same in this movie. But, what the film makers have also done is take the Irving character and his distinct personality and have given him a heart, they have crafted this 1 dimensional being into a 2 dimensional one, and they really create emotion during the film, especially when Irving and Billy are getting to know each other and bond. Johnny Knoxville's performance as Irving is the same shtick from the other movies, it is both funny and REALLY funny, but when he has to act, HE REALLY ACTS! I think this is Knoxville's greatest achievement in acting, and sincerely hope that he ventures off into more serious roles, as well as keeping with his comedic ones. The one that really steals the show, though is, of course, Billy, the cute, chubby little side kick. This kid is easily the best part about the movie, everything he does in the film, he does with fearlessness and class, stealing scenes from Johnny Knoxville and capturing hearts. The story includes all of the immature, raunchy moments that you would expect to see from 'Jackass', it features all of the uncomfortable reaction shots and the gross- out gags, but surprisingly, it also has a lot of sweet moments, too. One that comes to mind is a scene featuring a gang of bikers who run an organisation that help abused children. This particular scene had me tearing up a bit. Overall, this is a ridiculously funny movie, and possibly one of my favourite movies of the year. Next to 'The World's End' and 'Ted', this is one of the few recent comedies that actually made me laugh. It may come off the roots of the immature 'Jackass' formula, but what lies behind the Jackass is a big, big heart. 'BAD GRANDPA' Directed by: Jeff Tremaine Written by: Jeff Tremaine,Spike Jonze and Johnny Knoxville Produced by: Jeff Tremaine, Spike Jonze, Derek Freda and Johnny Knoxville Starring: Johnny Knoxville & Jackson Nicoll

This flick is half the real, crazy, way out MTV's Jackass pranks and a very boring fake story line of a Grandpa driving his Grandson from Missouri to North Carolina. The few funny Johnny Knoxville pranks don't make up for the absolutely ridiculously snooze fest of a plot. Some of the pranks on real people and their reactions are very funny, don't get me wrong. But you are going to have to endure some raunchy,sickening and down right gross stuff that is not what you go to a movie theater to see to be entertained. I just wanted this flick to be over, there are better things I could be doing or watching. I went with five people to watch this and sure we laughed but in the end, we all agreed this was a big waste of time.

Yeah, I'm sorry but this thing is NOT funny. That's the bottom line. The bizarre choice to film it with a type of a story does not help it at all. A few minor laughs in what is a drab and unintelligent attempt at comedy. No ad-libs worked or seemed clever which is what disappointed me the most. They never even took anything too far and seem to go out of their way to be nice. Maybe the need for written consent after the camera stopped rolling took all the bite out of this lame dud? I actually enjoy the Jackass films and was expecting more hidden camera gems instead of whatever this thing tried to be and failed.

I had an afternoon to kill, so I saw this (at least, the first 30 min). It killed the afternoon and everything within 100 miles. There's 'bad' and then there's roadkill, and this is worse. The story is superficial, the efforts are meager, the characters are shallow and uninteresting; the writing is juvenile or simply non-existent. The film is a rip-off of Sasha Baron-Cohen, the device being to plant a foul-mouthed or embarrassing figure within ordinary people and see how they react. Baron-Cohen does it for political reasons, creating satire; he has imagination and talent. This film is nothing but gross. The movie stages a series of setups, end-on-end, same trick over and over, an elderly low-life who chats up women for sex and makes a fool of himself. We're supposed to laugh. The child actor begins well, but veers into dialogue that makes him only sound like the wife of the writer. And so, by the 30th minute, we're hating the child as well as the old man. The film understands neither old men nor young children, it's barren. This might mark the beginning of a new genre, call it Reality Comedy, where amateur hour substitutes for writing, and where bystanders get to react without being paid. Give it a pass, unless you're going to warn others at the door.

I'm not a huge fan of the Jackass movies and am approaching 50 so maybe not in the target demographic but the trailer for the movie made us laugh so we went to see it. Most of the time I was chuckling rather than out and out belly laughing. But one scene in particular (the strip club) almost made me hyperventilate. I literally couldn't catch my breath because I was laughing so hard. It's one of the funniest scenes that I can recall ever seeing in a movie. The boy who plays the kid is excellent, he's very believable and cute and for such a young boy he does very well in what is not really a straightforward acting role. If you have the right sense of humour for this type of thing, I highly recommend it (if you're aged 14-25 and male it's a guaranteed hit). If you hate Jackass and all it represents, don't bother paying to see it in a theater, maybe wait for cable because that one scene in the strip club IS worth seeing (unless you're an overly sensitive prude!).