Bad Grandpa 2013
Jackass movies are a guilty pleasure. They are hit and miss, disgusting, but occasionally very funny. Bad Grandpa takes a different tack from past movies, instead having this horrible old man interact with mostly unsuspecting members of the public. Based on Candid Camera, the movie bears a pretty strong resemblence to Borat, though it feels like there is a little less material in Bad Grandpa. Borat dealt more with verbal interaction as this obnoxious foreigner would go from being awkward to racist or sexist. Grandpa is just a dirty old man with bad language all the time. There are a number of big setups where they lure a group of people in and then film their reactions, but the better material is on the street as passersby react to some of what is going on. The film makers try to tie all of this together with a plot of scripted material in between pranks, which seems kind of pointless and also means that, unlike with Candid Camera, that in order to maintain the storyline they can’t show them pulling a prank on multiple people. And they don’t explain the prank to the victims on screen until the final credits.
The big question is Does it work? It does a lot of times. There are certainly more laugh out loud moments in the movie than in most comedies. But as the movie wears on the payoffs seem smaller and smaller, and it sort of drags. There is some great material here, but it is mostly loaded towards the front. And the movie is very much R rated, so don’t think for a moment this is some kind of innocent Candid Camera episode. B-
Written: 02 Feb 2014