‘Jackass: Best and Last’ Review: One Final (Fingers Crossed) Hurrah

A very wise man — the character Noah Cross in Chinatown, to be specific — once said, “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” The same could well be said of the Jackass franchise, which has somehow garnered more critical acclaim the longer it’s gone on. But all things come to an end, and so it is with this series that has lasted longer than a quarter-century and reaches its supposed conclusion with Jackass: Best and Last.

Featuring scenes of dangerous stunts performed by grown men (and a couple of women), the series has been celebrated for its portrait of friendship and camaraderie. For the sheer gleeful joy with which its participants abuse themselves and each other. For the anarchic, nearly surreal nature of the bits that make legendary cinematic daredevils ranging from Buster Keaton to Jackie Chan seem like wimps.

If you can appreciate the films for those qualities, or find them hysterically funny, that’s fine. But really, let’s stop pretending that they’re anything but asinine. Sure, lead jackass Johnny Knoxville is an appealing performer (and a decent actor, as he’s proven numerous times). And some of the rest of his motley crew display a healthy awareness of the utter stupidity of what they’re doing.

But while there are occasionally funny moments, these movies are emblematic of the dumbing down of America. (Not the dumbness of its creators, however, since the first five films in the series have grossed nearly $560 million worldwide.) Instead of sending musical selections or welcome messages in various languages into outer space, we should send these films. It would guarantee that aliens would find the planet not worth invading.  

This final installment is a glorified clip job, with more than half of its running time composed of highlights, or more accurately lowlights, of the MTV television series and subsequent films. So if you’re nostalgic to once again see Steve-O strapped into a porta potty and slung into the air only to be covered in excrement, you’re in luck.

There’s also previously unseen footage, including the stunt that started it all — Knoxville donning a Kevlar vest and shooting himself point blank in the chest. Only it takes him six tries for the bullet to emerge. Another previously unseen stunt shows him sealed in a cardboard box that is thrown down a flight of stairs. That never aired because it was deemed too easily imitated. Of course, there have been numerous instances over the years of children and teenagers being injured while attempting to recreate the more elaborate stunts.

Another vintage bit, which MTV also declined to air, involves Knoxville, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and shackled in handcuffs, entering a hardware store and asking for a hacksaw. In the resulting police action, an officer nearly loses control of her patrol car.  

Knoxville, who gets choked up more than once onscreen over the prospect of his cash cow, sorry, labor of love, coming to an end, explains that he’s gotten too old to suffer the sort of bodily harm to which he’s been exposed. And you kind of believe him, especially when you see the footage from 2022’s Jackass Forever in which he suffered a severe concussion, a brain hemorrhage, and several broken bones in an ill-advised encounter with a bull.

He’s more of an observer than a participant in the new stunts devised for the film, which include Steve-O receiving a rectal exam from a robot using peanut butter as a lubricant. The robot, dubbed IW Larry, is voiced by comedian Adam Ray, who delivers some of the funniest lines.

The performers all seem to relish the opportunity to be physically abused, although some of them do express regret here and there. “Fuck this job!” one exclaims after being shot with a taser while strung up in the air like a marionette. Another, inserting a toy car into his anus, admits, “I’m really questioning myself right now.”

As usual, there’s a plethora of gross-out scenes, including a game of Twister for which the participants, clad in see-through plastic pants, have prepared by ingesting heavy-duty laxatives.

There are, admittedly, some moments in which the conceptual ideas are actually amusing, such as the classic clip from the series in which the gang pretends to abduct Brad Pitt while he’s standing in line for a hot dog at Pink’s. And a scene depicting a barroom brawl among little people, interrupted by similarly diminutive cops and paramedics, feels like it could have been devised by Buñuel.

Although the visual quality throughout is strictly low-rent, the arresting opening and closing sequences reflect the visual panache of Spike Jonze, who produced. The film ends like the series began, with the Jackass crew riding in a giant grocery cart, except in this case they’re headed to oblivion to the strains of the song “My Way.” Of course, the next song we hear is “We’ll Meet Again,” so the odds that this is truly the final entry feel slim.