Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa is a 2013 hidden camera comedy film directed by Jeff Tremaine and written by him alongside the other co-creators of Jackass: Spike Jonze and Johnny Knoxville (the latter of whom stars in the film). It is the second film presented under the Jackass Presents banner following the 2008 direct-to-DVD film Mat Hoffman's Tribute to Evel Knievel, and the first to be released in theaters.
In the film, Knoxville plays a character of his previously seen in the previous three Jackass films — the curmudgeonly old coot Irving Zisman. At the start of the film, he has just received some tragic news. His wife of 40 plus years has passed away...and he couldn't be happier. He's a free man for the first time in decades, and he's going to enjoy every second of it.
But fate throws a monkey wrench into this plan when Irving's daughter winds up heading to jail (again) for drug charges, leaving her 8-year-old son Billy with nobody to take care of him. So, much to his dismay, Irving has to haul Billy across the country to North Carolina, and drop him off with his scumbag dad. Along the way, Irving finds himself oddly growing attached to Billy, and vice versa.
Unlike the Jackass films, Bad Grandpa connects its stunts and pranks together with a loose narrative (à la Borat). Very much like the series' films, however, it also had enough extra footage filmed to make a companion film. This film, Bad Grandpa .5 (the .5 being a trademark of the series' previous companion films), was released on DVD and Blu-Ray in July 2014, containing over 40 minutes of additional outtakes and interviews.
Bad Grandpa has the noteworthy achievement of being the first and only Jackass film to be nominated for an Academy Award, in this case for Best Makeup And Hairstyling.
Not to be confused with Dirty Grandpa, starring Robert De Niro.
This film contains examples of the following tropes:
- Badass Biker: The Guardians of the Children, a real biker gang specializing in helping abused kids.
- Cool Old Guy: How Billy eventually sees Grandpa Irving.
- Dirty Old Man: Irving is a pervy old bastard, and he lets every passing woman know it.
- Establishing Character Moment: We're introduced to Irving leering at a bikini clad woman in a magazine...advertising tampons.
- The "Fun" in "Funeral": Mrs. Zisman's funeral.
- From the Mouths of Babes: Hanging around Grandpa Irving gives Billy a bit of a foul mouth.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Irving.
- Legacy Character: Irving hails from the second Jackass movie.
- Lighter and Softer: While still R-rated, for the most part, this movie is notably tamer than the main Jackass films, lacking many of the gross-out elements or the violence, instead going for hidden camera prank comedy.
- Refuge in Audacity: The film begins with Irving perving on photographs of women in a tampon advertisement; the film ends with Irving and Billy fishing from a bridge having dumped the body of Irving's wife into the river below.
- Road Trip Plot
- Shout-Out: The ending at a beauty pageant is an obvious homage to Little Miss Sunshine.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Irving.
