Action Point

So, something has happened in Jackass land since Bad Grandpa. While Bad Grandpa wasn’t technically a Jackass movie, it was a “Jackass Presents” movie, and it had the usual Jackass movie director, Jeff Tremaine, calling the shots. The results were the kind of fun we expect from a Jackass movie, with a little more narrative plot, but the emphasis remaining on the killer stunts. Action Point is a stinky pile-of-shit movie. The Jackass label and director are gone, with only stars Johnny Knoxville and Chris Pontius representing the former crew. The slant goes much more toward the narrative—a bad and boring narrative—with only a few OK stunts thrown in for good measure. It’s an uneven, embarrassing, unfunny mess. That’s a shame, because Knoxville proves he’s certainly still game to get his ass kicked for the glory of cinema—although he’s looking a little beat-up these days—and the “true” story at the center of the movie is one ripe for Jackass-type fun. The formula simply doesn’t work this time. The story is based upon a real, now mostly defunct amusement park—Action Park in New Jersey—that had an actual death count (six deaths). I grew up on Long Island and would go to this park in the ’80s. It’s now legendary for its danger factor—a place where safety just wasn’t really on the top of everybody’s list of concerns. The park was crazy and cool; the movie is lame and lumbering.