Jackass: Bad Grandpa

I remember watching the first Jackass movie when I was younger and loving the pranks and "stunts".
It was all so original and fresh - impossible for a teenage boy to resist.
Then came two more films, along with their television show, and the countless other copycats that hit the market and it all went stale.
I have not seen any of the Jackass crew since that first film, but I was reintroduced to a sample of their whacky antics thanks to Johnny Knoxville's Bad Grandpa.
Just as I was in awe of the mindless stupidity of the stunts in the first Jackass film, Bad Grandpa hit all the right notes for me.
What made it so great was there was actually a storyline/plot involved, and not just a collection of umpteen wild stunts just tacked onto each other.
The Jeff Tremaine-directed film weaved the stunts in and out of the storyline, making them relevant to what Knoxville - who you can barely recognise as 86 year old grandfather Irving Zisman - and sidekick Jackson Nicoll - the eight year old grandson Billy - experience.
 The plot? Zisman ends up stuck with Billy after Billy's mum Kimmie (Georgina Gates) is ordered back to prison for violating parole. While she is in jail, Billy is supposed to stay with his dad Chuck (Greg Harris), and Zisman is all too happy to be rid of his young sidekick. The news is broken very loudly, shockingly and ultimately humorously at Zisman's wife Ellie's (Catherine Keener) funeral.
Sounds horrible, would be quite bad if it happens in real life, executed brilliantly and hilariously on the big screen.
As Zisman and Billy travel across the United States on their way to Chuck's, they have a few ordinary stops along the way (food and drink shops, petrol stations, motels). Being a Knoxville movie with the Jackass brand attached to the title, you already know where the pranks will take place.
Knoxville's transition into an 86 year old sleazy grandpa is seamless - the makeup, the attitude, the dirty jokes and blatantly rude pick up attempts. He has got it all. But while he may be the star of this film, it is completely stolen by Nicholl as Billy.
Billy wandering around asking strangers to be his dad, Billy helping his dirty old grandpa hit on unsuspecting (and completely uninterested) women, Billy asking what whores are in an awkward conversation in the car - completely inappropriate and utterly hilarious. He's a cute little kid by appearance, and it's that innocence that adds so much more to everything he does on screen.
Knoxville's greatest moments come in a male strip joint (I'll leave that there) and later in a restaurant over an early morning meal.
But the very best of the movie comes at the very end. Kudos to Tremaine and his editing crew, as many comedies, in my experience, often reach their highest comical points about 50-70% of the way through the film. Other films even have their best gags cramped into the opening third, leaving the rest for the character's self discovery and "growing up". Bad Grandpa's best is saved for the very end, and it is young Billy again in the spotlight.
If you have seen the trailers, you know what I am talking about (more on that rant later). The whole beauty pageant section is an absolute blast. I don't want to say much about it, but the reactions of the audience - especially the judging panel - are amazing.
Bad Grandpa caters to a very specific sense of humour, so if you don't like being shocked, better to avoid this one. For everyone else, the laughs will keep coming for the whole 90 minutes.