The Jackass shtick isn’t as funny in the Trump era. The reason for this is obvious: Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing in small doses, amongst close friends, or with select targets. Schadenfreude is, however, not an effective system of government. Donald Trump and his clown car of trolls have nothing to offer but institutional destruction and subsequent ridicule; that’s what you voted for. When it was just Johnny Knoxville and the Knoxvillage People pulling mean-spirited pranks and behaving in self-destructive ways, hey, that’s funny. When the entire government and the majority voting populace of every red state does it, well, it kinda loses its appeal, y’know?
So, yeah, there was a time not-so-long ago when I would have several puerile cackles at a throng of deliberately self-destructive morons; now I find it impossible to separate the self-destructive morons on screen from the self-destructive morons running my country. Given the political current climate, Action Point seems less a de-regulated playground and more a libertarian fantasy: How dare the government insist the physical entertainment you sell to children follow even the most meager of safety protocols! You tell ‘em, Johnny!
Action Point is the kind of place I would have loved as a kid … when I had no concept of how hurt one could get on a broken, unsupervised, or just plain unsafe attraction … a zip line with no harness or safety net, a luge track without containment barriers, a water slide held together by duct tape … I haven’t even scratched the surface of the potential injury list. Park owner D.C. (Knoxville) doesn’t have the funds to live in a proper house, much less bring Action Point to code. As the summer begins, his daughter Boogie (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) has come to stay with him, as has –figuratively- his personal nemesis, Knoblach (Dan Bakkedahl), a real estate agent who stands to win big if he can force D.C. to sell Action Point to the new high-tech amusement park next door.
Gosh, kudos on the throwback script; I haven’t seen Meatballs in years. The film is naturally set in the Meatballs era to account for unregulated frivolity. Acknowledging that the park next door is kicking Action Point’s ass revenue-wise, D.C. comes up with a brilliant strategy: let’s make the rides and attractions even less safe than before! After all, what’s a tetanus shot without a broken bone or two to match?
Do you need an excuse to see Johnny Knoxville catapult into an upper-story barn? That’s what Action Point is all about. Oh, sure, there’s a half-assed parenting lesson in there, I suppose. Seeing as it’s coming from a movie where the lone adult spends his free time attempting
to catch a porcupine bare handed for the sake of a children’s petting zoo … ummm, perhaps we can conclude that if you’re getting a parenting lesson from Action Point, maybe you should step up your game to take life lessons from “Family Guy.”
I guffawed a handful of times at this train wreck. And when I say, “train wreck,” I mean that as one of the Action Point attractions. It did occur to me while watching that this film not only represents the libertarian dream; this is a libertarian best-case scenario: where all the government-free idiocy spewing like an active volcano ends in smiles rather than frowns. Assumption of personal risk is all good and fun until somebody, literally, loses an eye. When I think of libertarian fight for freedom, I will forever picture a world in which the Jackass gang takes over every public park in the nation. I’ll give it this much – that vision is entertaining. This vision? Less.
Don’t jump to unreasonable conclusions
When park choices give not but confusions
Come to Action Point
A delight to anoint
For thrills, chills, and massive contusions
Rated R, 85 Minutes
Director: Tim Kirkby
Writer: John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky
Genre: Jackass, with a “story”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Libertarians
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The mother who makes you bring a jacket because you “might get cold”
