When it comes to entertainment, it was, of course, Homer Simpson who put
it best when he said: “Barney's movie had heart, but ‘Football in the Groin’ had a football in the groin”. In his own imitable, jaundiced, 4 fingered way, Homer J. summarised the way in which many of us understand comedy. Even the wittiest, most intelligent, most impeccably timed bon mot often pales in the humour stakes when compared to a man getting knocked unconscious by a pressurised phallus. As Homer said: ‘It works on so many levels.’
And so here we be. It’s been four years since Jackass reached its alleged resolution with, yes, Jackass: The Movie, and our heroes have been busy. Sir Johnny of Knoxville has been grinding out a mostly underappreciated acting career (more on that later), Bam Margera has been making a tidy living terrorizing his parents à la Viva La Bam, Steve-O and Chris Pontius have been getting cosy with the animals in Wildboyz. There have been drug charges, shoe company launches (Steve-O’s Sneaux Shoes), beards have been grown, Chris Pontius’ hair now looks stupid, and Ehren McGhehey is still quite annoying. Older, but not wiser, then.
It’s difficult not to seem a tad cynical when Jackass’s co-founder and golden boy P.J. Clapp (lesser known as Johnny Knoxville)’s acting career wallows in so-so reviews and mediocre box-office receipts, when nottotallyunexcepted news of a Jackass revivification is announced. Yet cynics are tiresome, and they often smell, and to miss Number Two (it rhymes with ‘poo’, you know) would be like missing The Godfather Part II because Marlon Brando isn’t in it. Idiots.
The good news is that Jackass: Number Two is stronger, bolder, braver, crazier, and ultimately much funnier than their previous big-screen outing. Thoughts of a bunch of prankster divas stomping their feet, screaming that their sparkling water isn’t ‘crispy-cold’ enough, between scenes of horse semen consumption, is thankfully non-existent, if anything, the group have decided to push each other ruthlessly (and sometimes physically) through a much heightened array of pain / fear barriers. Particularly Knoxville, who laughs in the face of being shot, bitten repeatedly by an anaconda the size of, like… Texas, and being thrown about like a rag doll by ill-tempered bulls. The man clearly has something to prove.
What’s perhaps most pleasing about Jackass: Number Two isn’t seeing grown men smash their faces into solid objects, attaching leaches to their eyes, firing themselves into space in a man-sized rocket, or even weep like girly girls (well, perhaps it is). What is most impressive is the friendship they share. No, seriously. Virtually nowhere can we see men being irrefutably ‘men’ without resorting to grabbing their balls or throwing an alcohol fuelled head-butt into someone’s teeth. The difference here is the respect they share for each other, earned only through the number of bruises or broken bones they’ve received, like medals. Even the branding of a penis on a grown man’s arse is treated with coos of admiration by his peers.
Inevitably, a few jokes sneak past the political correctness barrier, a skit involving a middle-eastern gentleman (with the Jackass crew’s pubes attached to his face) hinting to a taxi-driver (who is in on the joke) that he’s going to blow up the airport, seems a little ill-advised, what’s funnier is the personal aspect, seeing the trickster getting tricked. Yet overall, the boyish chuckles are almost constant, you’re left wanting to re-rewind and play Wee Man’s Wilhelm scream as he’s catapulted across that lake. The grossness factor is also amplified, and inevitably, the vomit flows, but it’s with good old fashioned pain that receives the main belly-laughs. As for Knoxville, he need no longer prove his acting mettle as with his impressive prosthetic elderly gentlemen shtick (Spike Jonze’s elderly woman is equally notable). Any actor who can keep his composure and performance in check with the real possibly of getting his face kicked in passes in my book. And people consider Jennifer Lopez an actress.
Even if Jackass: Number Two proves to be the show’s swansong, (which seems unlikely) it proves that slapstick humour is as ageless as it is tasteless. And if Knoxville’s career continues to tread water, then we should all have sympathy for Mr. Pain.