Rating: 4/10
Running Time: 85 minutes
UK Certificate: 18
If you've ever watched an episode of Jackass in its original small screen format on MTV, you'll already know exactly what to expect from this shameless cash-in on the part of Johnny Knoxville and the self-harming gang of mentalists who work as his accomplices.
Novices won't take long to get the gist. With camera crew in tow, Knoxville and co set about publicly pounding, maiming, violating and soiling themselves and then present the evidence for us to laugh at. Very nice of them, but you can't help but think that some of this stuff is very much above and beyond the call of duty.
While some of the stunts seem to have been included for no reason other than to repulse the audience (I, for one, had to look away when Knoxville allowed a helpful chum to inflict paper cuts between each of his fingers and toes), there's no getting away from the fact that much of this movie is laugh-out-loud funny. Highlights, such as the gang trashing a hired car and then attempting to return it the next day, or hiding in the bushes at a golf course and sounding an air horn just as the increasingly angry club members are about to tee off, wouldn't fail to have any audience in stitches.
Unfortunately, the joke starts to wear thin after a while and the end product to all this gross-out mayhem struggles to justify it's feature film length. Had this been on TV, I'd soon have found myself flicking through the other channels looking for something that doesn't become tedious quite so quickly, just as I've often found myself doing during episodes of the series itself.
In fairness, Jackass does exactly what it says on the tin and never pretends to be anything other than a group of frat boys goading each other on to make the next stunt more revolting, more painful, or more hilarious than the last. Not exactly 'harmless' fun, but you get the idea.
It's Got: Quite possibly the most brave AND stupid men ever to make it to the silver screen.
It Needs: To offer more than weve already seen a hundred times over in the TV series, other than the occasional extra swear word or flash of nudity.
Summary
Fans of the TV series will be in their element everyone else will wonder what on Earth theyve let themselves in for. Hilarious in some places, downright disgusting in others, but essentially a plotless collection of Candid Camera-style footage thats seldom in any danger of being regarded as a classic.