Jackass Got Older and So Did I

It was great to see the guys together again.

When Jackass showed up on MTV in 2000, it was a show you watched in secret. You didn’t announce that you were a fan. You caught it when you could, then joked about it with your friends the next day. It was a cringe show made for young men, and I was exactly who it was made for.

Twenty-six years later, Jackass: Best and Last is the fifth movie and the one Johnny Knoxville says is the end. Watching it now is a different experience. It reminds me of my younger days. The movie is built for that, too. Director Jeff Tremaine splits it between new stunts and the archive, pulling favorite bits from the show and the four earlier films along with footage that never aired. It opens with the tape that started everything, a young Knoxville testing a bulletproof vest on himself. A lot of the running time is the crew looking back at who they were, which is what I was doing in my seat.

A diverse group of people, including a seated man and a child in a white costume, poses outside a building.

Fifty-Something and Still at It

Knoxville, Steve-O, Wee Man, and Chris Pontius are all in their fifties now, and they are still lining up to take the hit. Watching them do it at that age feels like me. I’m physically older, but I’m still a kid at heart, and so are they. It felt good seeing them back at it again.

I’ll be clear about one thing. I would not want to join them for any of these stunts. I never did, even back when I was watching in secret, and I definitely don’t now.

Excited group of men cheering on a roller coaster as smoke rises behind them

Friends I’ve Known for a Long Time

What I walked out with was less about any single stunt and more about the group. After this many years, these guys feel like friends I’ve known for a long time. I grew up, they grew up, and the show that started as something you hid from your parents grew along with us.