An outrageously unsafe 1970s amusement park provides the ideal location for Johnny Knoxville's uniquely idiotic brand of self-abusive stunts.
Director: Tim Kirkby With: Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius Release Date: Jun 1, 2018
Rated R 1 hour 24 minutes
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What if Johnny Knoxville and a couple of his buddies from the “Jackass” hurt-yourself-for-the-hell-of-it TV series were put in charge of an amusement park? Instead of safety being the owners’ primary concern, guests would be encouraged to tempt fate on notoriously risky waterslides, ziplines, and a high-speed downhill toboggan. That’s the lowbrow high concept behind the gleefully brainless “Action Point,” which was inspired by just such a death trap in Vernon, New Jersey, known as Action Park, where much fun was had (and many bones were broken) before a handful of personal injury lawsuits forced its closure in 1996.
Knoxville and his team clearly see this as the ideal stage for a fresh batch of willfully idiotic stunts — one of which was reportedly so severe that it dislodged Knoxville’s eyeball, such that it pops out of its socket whenever he sneezes — all in service of a woefully unfunny comedy that’s clearly been reverse-engineered to showcase ostensibly amusing (but not really) displays of bodily harm. The “Jackass” star plays D.C., proprietor of a mixed fun-park-cum-health-hazard in which a bunch of drunk, underage teenagers allow visitors to recklessly endanger themselves in the name of cheap thrills.
Judging by a handful of online documentary shorts about the real Action Park, daredevil east coast teens (too young to recognize the concept of their own mortality) loved the fact that the place was so dangerous, giving them bragging rights for having survived its most treacherous rides — including two, the Cannonball Loop and Alpine Slide, that are re-created here in all their death-defying peril. Unfortunately, the movie (directed by TV comedy helmer Tim Kirkby) does little to put audiences in visitors’ shoes, depicting park guests as a bunch of cheapskates lured by the promise of free liquor.
Film Review: Johnny Knoxville in 'Action Point'
Reviewed at Pacific Theatres at the Grove, Los Angeles, June 1, 2018. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 84 MIN.
PRODUCTION: A Paramount Pictures release and presentation of a Gerber Pictures production. Producers: Johnny Knoxville, Bill Gerber, Derek Freda. Executive producers: Garrett Grant, Jon Kuyper. Co-producer: Adam Schroeder.
CREW: Director: Tim Kirkby. Screenplay: John Altschluer, Dave Krinsky; story: Johnny Knoxville, Derek Freda, Altschuler, Krinsky, Mike Judge. Camera (color): Michael Snyman. Editors: Matthew Kosinski, Nicholas Monsour. Music: Deke Dickerson, Andrew Feltenstein, John Nau.
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WITH: Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, Dan Bakkedahl, Matt Schulze, Eleanor Worthington-Cox, Johnny Pemberton, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Joshua Hoover, Conner McVicker, Eric Manaka.