REVIEW

‘JACKASS FOREVER’: A Confederacy of Dunces

Name: ‘JACKASS FOREVER’: A Confederacy of Dunces
Item: Jackass Forever
Rating: 85
Author: Matt Oakes

By Matt Oakes · February 2, 2022

Where to watch: Streaming on Paramount+, or rent or buy on digital (updated October 2026)Watch on Paramount+ · Rent or buy on Amazon · Buy on Blu-ray/4KAs an Amazon Associate, Silver Screen Riot earns from qualifying purchases.

It’s a remarkable feat that all these years later, MTV’s original confederacy of dunces still can withstand this level of pain. Jackass Forever, as directed by longtime ringmaster Jeff Tremaine, forgoes any suggestion of maturity and sticks with the simple premise of dick-punching, bone-shattering, concussion-friendly gags that these cackling hyena’s den of pranksters have long delivered for the juvenile, puerile, infantile amongst us. It’s just as recklessly funny as it’s always been.

An hour-and-thirty-minutes of childish pranks, animal close encounters, and genital torture either rips by as you howl and cackle at the stupidity on screen or becomes an absolute litmus test of one’s patience, depending on one’s stance on Jackass. There really is no middle ground. You either ride the childish wave of glee derived from grown men getting smacked in the groin or you avoid any theater this is playing in like the plague. Jackass Forever is not a return to form so much as it’s a greatest hits reunion, bringing the same old manic energy of the Adderall-addled gang of ne’er-do-wells back to life just as they’re hitting middle age. There is nothing new to see here, just more weathered dudes taking the same old beat down.

Jackass Forever movie still Many of the OG veterans are back, including troop leader Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Wee-Man, Dave England, Preston Lacy, and Ehren McGhehey (who regularly sustains the most torment of any in this band of jackals). They register at various levels of “worse for wear”, Steve-O oddly enough having aged more gracefully than most. Ryan Dunn sat this one out for obvious reasons (he died in a car crash in 2011) but more shocking is the omission of Bam Margera, who had a bit of a public falling out amidst claims that he violated a “sobriety clause” and was removed from the film.

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A slate of newcomers includes Sean McInerney (aka “Poopies”), Jasper Dolphin and his “gangbanger Dad” Dark Shark, and Rachel Wolfson who appear alongside celebrities like Eric Andre, Machine Gun Kelly, and heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. All contribute to various shenanigans, torturing themselves perhaps not so much for the audiences’ pleasure so much as their own and that of cult of personality leader Johnny Knoxville. The uproariously laughter of the pranksters is often just as funny – if not moreso – than the actual pranks themselves.

The stunts range from idiocracy to insanity. Most depend exclusively on these “professional stuntmen” subjecting themselves to extreme levels of pain. Almost always involving the genitals. Instances of such pain include having one’s penis bit by a turtle, getting punched in the crotch by a heavyweight champion boxer, getting stung by bees on the testicles, and having a full-grown vulture peck at your groin. We laugh. They cry. The world carries on. The likelihood of their reproduction abilities? Maybe not so much.

These band of goons perform Darwin Awards for our pleasure. There’s nothing new about this. Performers have always put themselves in harm’s way for an audience. Jackass simplified the act, jumping straight to the worst part of any “Funniest Home Videos” segment where we laugh at the subject’s misery; cutting all the preamble and getting right to the “guy stepping on a rake” part. Jackass Forever is 95 minutes of guy stepping on a rake. I couldn’t watch a new one of these every few years or on a weekly television show but at the cadence of about once a decade, it works. Watching it is like stepping back into your teenage years, crackin’ open a cold Mountain Dew, and just gooning with your pals. There are infinite imitators but there can only ever be one true Jackass. I’ll mark my calendar for 2032 when I’ll gladly revisit a 60-year old Johnny Knoxville getting bullwhipped by an actual bull.