Bad Grandpa (2013)
**** (out of 4)
Johnny Knoxville dresses up as old man Irving Zisman and takes a trip from Nebraska to North Carolina to take his grandson (Jackson Nicoll) back to his real father. BAD GRANDPA comes from the JACKASS team and while I did enjoy the show and the three previous films, all of them simply wore out their welcome after a while but that's certainly not the case with this film. I'm not going to go into great detail about the various pranks in the film because it's best to go in without knowing too many of them. I will say that this here doesn't resort to physical violence all that much, although there are a couple examples. The main focus is just this weird old man who puts his grandson into all sorts of bad situations and usually makes them worse. I think the film is remarkably funny and I'd probably call it one of the funniest films I've seen in a very long time. Again, I'm not a JACKASS die-hard but even if you hate that show you'll simply fall for the variety of dirty humor here. We get stuff dealing with the old man's sex life, his dead wife, various scenes of him playing drunk and causing trouble and of course there are some of the moments that everyone saw in the trailer like the beauty pageant. Why four stars? Why not? The film really is a laugh riot from the opening scene to the very last one and a lot of credit has to go to Knoxville and the various writers. What really makes this film work is a little "story" built around all the jokes about this grandfather coming closer to his grandson. It's oh-so-silly but that's the point. The various situations the two find themselves in are certainly the highlight of the picture as we get some downright shocking scenes. There are even moments that you'll see coming from a mile away but then you'll get a twist that will just have tears running down your face. BAD GRANDPA certainly earns its R-rating but it's also one of the funniest films in a very long time.
