Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Jackson Nicoll, Greg Harris
With his wife (Catherine Keener) now passed on, eighty-six year old Irving Zisman (Knoxville) is looking forward to finally having a good time, only to be saddled with his grandson, Billy (Nicoll). Given the task of taking Billy to his selfish and criminal father (Harris), Irving and Billy go on a road trip and have many misadventures along the way.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of American pop-culture of the last twenty years, is at least somewhat familiar with the Jackass brand. Starting out as a show on MTV, Jackass's trademark is stunts that emphasise personal injury or creating a nuisance amongst the general public, usually the former more than the latter. Bad Grandpa places more of an emphasis on pranks than stunts and has an intriguing concept of framing a fictitious narrative around these pranks. However, for all its originality, Bad Grandpa is not going to please everyone.
It should go without saying at this point that the Jackass crew have their humour at a pretty low-brow level. That's fine for those who like that sort of thing (and humour is ultimately subjective, people don't have too much choice in what they find funny) but non-fans will probably have to look elsewhere for a laugh. As far as the execution if the pranks go, there's an uncomfortable element that presents itself and it's not hard to feel sympathy for the unsuspecting "victims", although this is slightly remedied by their reactions in the credits when Knoxville reveals his face (odd that so many fall for it, considering the not entirely convincing makeup). If you're a Jackass fan, then this is possibly worth checking out but its slightly ambitious concept doesn't surpass its crudity that can leave the unconverted with a bad taste in their mouths.
Next time, Chris Hemsworth returns to save the world once more in Thor: The Dark World.