The first new stunt in Jackass: Best and Last involves a prostate exam performed by a robot with peanut butter on its “finger” or, as Steve-O more accurately calls it, its “claw.” The big stunt towards the end of the film consists of the guys chugging colonoscopy prep liquid and then playing the most disgusting version of Twister. Prostate exams, colonoscopies—the specter of aging haunts the film.
Best and Last is composed of a mix of new stunts and archival footage, essentially functioning as a documentary reflection on the entirety of Jackass. Legendary old stunts fans know and love gain fresh meaning when juxtaposed against new iterations. Who could forget when Ryan Dunn shoved a toy car up his ass and got an X-Ray of it in Jackass: The Movie (2002)? Now he is tragically gone, but the torch is carried on with a coin shoved up Zach Holmes’ ass and a ping pong ball shoved up Steve-O’s ass. Compared to previous iterations, the film has an introspective tone with occasional clips of the cast reminiscing on previous stunts. A couple times, Johnny Knoxville is visibly verklempt at the notion that this is his last time doing this.
This kind of explicit reflection is nowhere to be found in the wonderfully impulsive Jackass Number Two (2006), one of the greatest films ever made. “I think that second movie—when everyone was on their absolute worst behavior—is our best film,” Knoxville recently told Interview Magazine. The jackasses were on top of the world and acting with reckless abandon. This group of loveable freaks had successfully turned their fucked up idea into a TV show and a feature film, and here they were, back making another one. Number Two ends with the cast performing a stunt-filled rendition of the musical number “The Best of Times.” The production value is a far cry from Spike Jonze filming handheld while riding a skateboard—it’s staged like a Golden Age musical and complete with a recreation of a stunt by Knoxville’s hero, Buster Keaton. The finale leaves no doubt: Jackass is legitimate, it’s cinema, it’s Hollywood, it’s art.
In Best and Last, the final moments of the film are much more somber. An archival video shows director Jeff Tremaine and Knoxville chatting in what appears to be a hotel room late at night. They’re reflecting on a bit that went horribly wrong or right, depending on how you look at it. Without much being said, it’s clear there was a real threat of serious injury or death. Tremaine gravely tells Knoxville, “you got what you wanted.” He’s skimmed the hot iron of mortality and lived to tell the tale dozens of times over. Part of the thrill of many of the Jackass stunts is this illusion that the cast is cheating death. The origins of Jackass go back to a series of stunts Knoxville performed for the skateboarding magazine Big Brother where he tested various self-defense equipment on himself. Best and Last opens with one of these stunts, in which he shoots himself in the chest while wearing a bulletproof vest (with extra padding from dirty magazines). He’s literally shooting himself and laughing about it. What a thrill to laugh in the face of death! And to do it with the beautiful and supportive camaraderie of friends and collaborators.
If the previous and aptly titled film Jackass Forever (2022) explored the longevity of Jackass, Best and Last considers that the best (Jackass) days are in the past and the ultimate ending is in fact death itself, which maybe no longer feels like such an impossibility as the cast and crew have aged. Some of them have died. Johnny Knoxville’s hair is white now. How many years away are they from being real Bad Grandpas? I’ve aged too. I’m no longer a kid watching Jackass on my family’s hulking rear projection TV or even a young adult watching it in my friend’s basement while drinking beers that we chilled outside in the snow. I’m older now than Knoxville was when he started the show. And the world has changed too—there are anthropomorphic robots and lip filler and even a woman in Jackass (though sadly underutilized in the newest film).
The guys have taken a beating. Their bodies are marked by tattoos and scars. Double digit concussions now prevent Knoxville from any more run-ins with bulls or cannons. And they’ve grown up, had kids of their own, gotten sober. Knoxville has joked about starting to go to therapy in 2006 and not wanting to “fix” certain things that made him good at stunts. As he told Interview Magazine, he wasn’t even familiar with the concept of “thought before action” until his therapist introduced it to him. The youthful “we’re going to live forever” glee of early Jackass has faded a bit as the cast members have reached their 50s, but not totally gone out, kept alive over decades of hitting each other in the balls. Like Pontius’ penis, the pendulum of time keeps swinging. Death was always inevitable, but aging makes it feel a bit…closer. Death is Zach’s ass getting closer and closer to Poopies’ face as he’s lowered down in a harness. “Hi, I’m Johnny Knoxville, and this is the reality of more years behind me than in front of me!”
The grand finale of the film is a direct confrontation with mortality. The cast drives off a cliff in their iconic oversized shopping cart and crashes to the ground in a huge explosion. Their smoldering bodies lie there, backed by an inferno and a huge cloud of smoke. After Knoxville narrowly avoided death while filming his big red rocket stunt in Number Two, he joked that it could have been “picture wrap.” The end of life and the end of the film are equated. Finally, in Best and Last, they’ve done a stunt where they all die. It’s the end.
But then the camera pans to reveal the real cast staring down in awe and glee at the stunt dummies burning on the ground. They’ve cheated death once again and maybe once and for all. They’re immortalized by Jackass. Ryan lives on and so will all of them.
Jackass forever and ever and ever.