Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013)
Directed by Jeff Tremaine
86-year-old Irving Zisman is on a journey across America with the most unlikely companion: his 8 year-old grandson, Billy.
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What critics compared Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa to
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Directed by Larry Charles
Themes Plot
It makes it all the more rewarding to see folks call Irving out on his irresponsible behaviour as a caregiver, but it’s only a mild exposé compared to Borat ’s brilliant social spotlighting.
In a traditional comedy this kind of audacity would have inspired guilt in those that found it amusing, but here is a movie that, like “Borat” and “Bruno,” uses its shame in a strategic illusion to get reactions out of unsuspecting victims.
Presumably titled to take advantage of alphabetical proximity to hits like Bad Santa and Bad Teacher , Bad Grandpa also borrows heavily from Borat by sending Zisman on a cross-country trip.
Bad Grandpa is, at any rate, an uncertain marriage of the hidden-camera extreme stunt comedy of the TV show Jackass and its three movie spin-offs (I have seen a couple bits from the show, nothing at all of the movies) with an improvised "embarrass the civilians" narrative generally modeled after Borat .
In structure and concept, the film resembles the faux-documentary “ Borat ,” with the distinction that the cameras here are all hidden.
Before I get to that, you need to know that Bad Grandpa borrows heavily from the Borat handbook.
Back in 2013, the Jackass team conjured up Bad Grandpa , with Johnny Knoxville slapping on old man prosthetics and acting incorrigibly.
Not to be confused with Bad Grandpa (the hidden camera prank movie starring Johnny Knoxville in old man make-up), this painfully unfunny, deliberately offensive comedy marks a new low in Robert De Niro’s career and will undoubtedly rank as one of the worst films of the year, despite the fact that it’s still only January.
People are already confusing it with Johnny Knoxville’s Bad Grandpa, but that movie is 12 Years A Slave compared to this.
The imposition of this masterplot is really the only thing separating the film from "Jackass" spin-off Bad Grandpa , just as one word is the only thing separating the two concepts.
The Jackass guys, whose "Bad Grandpa" runs rings around this one, could teach Mazer a thing or two.
All of this invites comparisons to both Sideways (last-hurrah-before-a-wedding road trip) and Bad Grandpa (intergenerational male bonding), most of them unfavorable.
So it’s perfect timing when the handsome and muscular Noah ( Ryan Guzman ) moves into the house next door to help his ailing uncle (who distractingly resembles Johnny Knoxville in his “Bad Grandpa” makeup).
Enter the “boy” next door Noah ( Ryan Guzman of the Step Up franchise), a handsome youth newly arrived to care for his ailing uncle (who bears a striking resemblance to Johnny Knoxville ’s titular Bad Grandpa).
Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman, “Step Up Revolution” and “Step Up All In”) moves in next door to help care for an elderly relative who looks for all the world like Johnny Knoxville in his “Bad Grandpa” makeup.
With that said, Knoxville and Nicoll are awfully sweet together, even when they're bonding over beers and talk of finding tail (it helps that one particular montage is scored to King Harvest's soaring "Dancing in the Moonlight," which 2002's " A Walk to Remember " already proved can make any movie better).
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Directed by Jeff Tremaine ("Bad Grandpa," "Jackass: The Movie").
But in the pantheon of “Bad” movies—“ Bad Santa ,” “ Bad Teacher ,” “Bad Grandpa”—this one’s actually pretty good.
Of all the movies to follow the Bad formula — a collection that includes Bad Grandpa, Bad Teacher, Bad Santa, and that has somehow retroactively enveloped Abel Ferrara’s not-like-the-others 1992 Bad Lieutenant — Bad Moms clearly features the lowest standards for what constitutes misbehavior.
Sure, there may not any formal connection between Bad Santa , Bad Teacher , Bad Grandpa , Bad Words , Bad Gymnast (sorry, The Bronze ), and the new Bad Moms apart from the universal desire to attract audiences with the promise of zanily inappropriate behavior from people who are supposed to be role models and/or authority figures.