Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013)
★★ — Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013)
The Jackass franchise has always operated somewhere between performance art and public nuisance, and by 2013 it had been running, in various forms, for well over a decade. What began as a skateboarding and stunt culture magazine translated into a television series and then a string of theatrical films, all produced under the banner of Paramount Pictures and MTV Films, and all directed by Jeff Tremaine, who had been steering the whole anarchic operation since the very beginning. Tremaine had already brought the crew to cinemas multiple times by this point, including with Jackass 3.5 and Jackass 2.5, but Bad Grandpa represented something genuinely different from the ensemble sketch format that had defined the series. Here, the hidden-camera prank format was placed inside a loose narrative wrapper, a road movie of sorts, with the intention of giving the gags a throughline and the whole thing a shape that might justify a cinema ticket.
The premise is simple enough. Irving Zisman, an 86-year-old man played by Johnny Knoxville beneath a considerable amount of prosthetic work, finds himself saddled with his young grandson Billy (played by Jackson Nicoll) and the two of them make their way across America in what functions as both a fake custody drama and a series of increasingly elaborate public pranks on unsuspecting members of the public. The film sits in an odd category, part scripted comedy, part candid camera, and the makeup and prosthetic work required to make Knoxville convincingly elderly in broad daylight, in front of strangers who had no idea they were being filmed, was significant enough that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took notice. The supporting cast, which includes Georgina Cates, Catherine Keener, and Spike Jonze (a filmmaker himself, appearing here in front of the camera), exists largely in service of those staged moments rather than any conventional dramatic arc. For Knoxville, this was familiar territory. He had spent years building a screen persona comfortable with physical discomfort and audience unease, across projects as varied as Walking Tall and The Ringer, but Bad Grandpa asked him to sustain a single character across a feature runtime rather than cycling through a series of unrelated set pieces.
The film landed in cinemas in October 2013 with reasonable commercial success and the kind of word-of-mouth that tends to follow footage of real people reacting in horror or disbelief. Whether that translates into a satisfying feature film is, of course, a separate question entirely, and one the film's reception was never quite unanimous on. The tagline promises real people and real reactions, and on that front it largely delivers. What it promises beyond that is rather less certain.
Bad Grandpa (2013) somehow convinced the world that an 84-minute feature film built around one of Jackass’s most annoying recurring bits. Irving Zisman, a grouchy old man played by Johnny Knoxville under layers of prosthetics, was a good idea. And while it’s technically impressive for its elaborate hidden-camera pranks and seamless editing, as a film, it’s a grueling, slog that mistakes shock for substance and comedy. Yes, the prank setups are clever, and you can’t deny the commitment Knoxville and the crew show in pulling off these stunts with unsuspecting bystanders. What worked(ish) in five-minute bursts on Jackass becomes a chore at feature length. The story (a fake custody battle so Irving can dump his grandson on deadbeat relatives) is paper-thin, the humour relentlessly juvenile, and the emotional moments feel manipulative, like the film suddenly remembers it needs heart after 90 minutes. It was actually nominated for an Oscar for makeup (which it deserved) but that doesn’t make it a good movie. The technical craft behind the pranks is undeniable. As a comedy movie it is a fail.
For me, that Oscar nomination genuinely is the most interesting thing about this one when I look back on it now. The makeup team did remarkable work, and in a just world that craft would be in service of something more worthwhile. There is a version of this concept that could have been a sharp, genuinely funny piece of social observation, catching ordinary Americans off-guard in ways that reveal something true about how we treat the elderly, or the young, or strangers in general. Instead, it mostly settles for the easiest possible reaction from whoever happens to be in frame. I came away from it thinking about how well Jackass Forever understands what the format is actually good at, which is exactly this kind of thing in small, punchy doses. Ninety-odd minutes of Irving Zisman is a long time to spend with a joke that peaked somewhere around the six-minute mark.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2013 | Watched: 2025-10-16
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Paramount Plus · Paramount+ Amazon Channel · Paramount Plus Premium · Paramount Plus Basic with Ads
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · Paramount Plus Premium · Paramount Plus Essential · Paramount+ Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
Related on Movies With Macca
More from Jeff Tremaine: Jackass: Gumball Rally 3000 Special (2002) · Jackass 3.5 (2011) · Jackass 2.5 (2007) · Jackass Forever (2022)
More with Johnny Knoxville: Skiptrace (2016) · The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) · The Ringer (2005) · Walking Tall (2004)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
