The Best and Worst of Johnny Knoxville

“The Best and Worst of” series chronicles the career highlights and lowlights of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week, I take a look at the filmography of “Action Point” star Johnny Knoxville.

Films starring Johnny Knoxville that I've seen
Big Trouble
Men in Black II
Jackass: The Movie
Walking Tall
Lords of Dogtown
The Dukes of Hazzard 
The Ringer
Jackass Number Two
Jackass 3D
The Last Stand
Movie 43
Bad Grandpa 
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 

Best Performance: The Last Stand (2013)
The cult status The Last Stand has earned over the last couple of years can largely be attributed to Arnold Schwarzenegger making a return to his shotgun-toting, deadpan one-liner roots. If you ask me, Knoxville is every bit as essential to the success of this B-action gem as Austria's finest import since Mozart. The Jackass ring leader is in his zany comedic element as Lewis Dinkum, an eccentric antique weapon museum owner in an Arizona bordertown that gets called upon by Sherriff Ray Owens (Schwarzenegger) to help apprehend a notorious drug lord (Eduardo Noriega) that has escaped from federal custody.

Worst Performance: The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)
Knoxville's ability to perform in scripted movies is very underrated. Like his stuntwork, he's willing to go to great lengths to make an audience laugh and that unwavering level of commitment allows to him steal scenes with relative frequency. This gift went MIA when he portrayed Luke Duke in the big screen version of The Dukes of Hazzard.  An inexplicable lack of rapport with fellow goofball Seann William Scott combined with a notable inability to improve the garbage jokes that were fed to him made his performance in this woefully unfunny flick hard to watch.

Best Film: Jackass Number Two (2006)
Jackass has provided the most immature section of the world's population with dozen of hours of hilarious content, but the second of their three big screen adventures remains the undisputed peak of their beautiful, self-destructive idiocy. Producing a breakneck series of sophomoric stunts, skits and pranks that's as consistently amusing as this is a testament to this reckless ensemble's underrated gift for delivering unforgettable physical/gross-out comedy.

Worst Film: The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)
How so many pleasant, funny individuals were able to make an action comedy that's as universally-inept as The Dukes of Hazzard is just baffling. Almost none of the jokes land, the car chases are stagnant to the point where they feel eternal and nobody besides Burt F'n Reynolds comes close to embracing the cartoonish silliness that the source material calls for. A serious waste of a terrific opportunity to make an enjoyable dumb buddy movie.  


Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “Ocean's 8” star Sandra Bullock.