Jeff Tremaine’s “Jackass Forever”

Jackass Forever (2022)

Subversive, scatalogical slapstick hinging on masses of schaedenfreude with a weird family dynamic at its core that skewers (not literally) the male form and never pretends to be more than its dumb self

Never being a huge fan of Jackass, this final installment somehow transcends. With the cast getting older, the crew seem more like a dysfunctional family than ever. Mark Kermode said, “In a medium of cinema which is so obsessed with objectifying and leering over women’s bodies, it’s almost something kind of interesting about a film in which male nudity is so front and centre and held up for such absolutely unforgiving ridicule” and he’s right. The extent of this ridicule and punishment is relentless throughout and much of the humour is entirely slapstick relying on the audience’s hunger for schaedenfreude or morbid curiosity to carry them through to the end.

The no holds barred approach is also something that’s quite rare to see. In a way, it reminded me of the first Lars von Trier film I saw, “The Idiots” which was in part about people being comfortable in their own skins. Here, it’s almost a marvel in and of itself to see this motley crew so up for anything and so at ease with themselves across a range of body shapes, races, creeds and ages. Thinking about it, the film adheres quite closely to the principles of the Dogme 95 Manifesto.

All that said, it’s a Jackass movie. There’s no structure beyond what was established in the show with a series of episodic stupidity. I would have liked to have seen more of a thread through the film and a more coherent conclusion, but it entertains like a mad circus act and that’s okay. It never pretends to be more than what it is.