Have you seen the film Bad Grandpa?
It’s a bit like Borat in the way the central character – in this case Johnny Knoxville – goes around in disguise causing trouble while cameras capture the horrified reactions of the general public who don’t know they’re being filmed.
If you have seen it, I’ll get to the point of this post in a minute, however if you haven’t, here’s a little taster of what it is all about …
So as you can tell, the movie is basically about the twisted – yet loving – relationship between a cantankerous, cranky, loveable pervert grandfather [played by Knoxville] and his sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth, mischievous, grandson [played by Jackson Nicoll]
Throughout the film, they get up to all sorts of scrapes … from defecating in a family restaurant to entering a child’s pageant show [with the little boy dressed as a girl before launching into a full-on stripper routine to Warrant’s ‘Cherry Pie’] … however unlike Borat, which basically exploited stereotypes and cultural differences, the beauty of Bad Grandpa is that the overriding feeling you get at the end of it, is how utterly wonderful society is.
From showing how people are genuinely concerned about the well being of a kid seemingly on his own in the city through to a biker gang actively caring about the feelings of an old man who they believe has had to leave his grandchild with his loathed son-in-law, the movie inadvertently reveals the best of humanity.
I know that sounds mad, I know that might not actually be what Knoxville and the Jackass/MTV gang intended, but it does.
At a time where the media likes to present the World as a cesspit of hate, violence and crime … the movie Bad Grandpa will not only give you a lot of [guilty] laughs, it will also remind you there are far more good people out there than bad and as long as we all play our part in keeping it that way, there’s a chance things might not be as bleak as they sometimes appear.