Johnny Knoxville Archives

Review: ‘Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted,’ starring Swamp Dogg, Moogstar and Guitar Shorty

May 23, 2025

by Carla Hay

Swamp Dogg in “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

Directed by Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson

Culture Representation: Taking place in California’s San Fernando Valley, the documentary film “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” features an African American and white group of people cast of characters discussing the life and career of singer/songwriter Swamp Dogg.

Culture Clash: Swamp Dogg (whose real name is Jerry Williams Jr.) has had ups and downs in his career, including hit songs and being dropped by Elektra Records in the 1970s for his extreme left-wing views on the Vietnam War.

Culture Audience: “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Swamp Dogg, music from the late 20th century, and documentaries about unconventional entertainers.

Moogstar in “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” is a unique documentary reflecting underrated singer/songwriter Swamp Dogg: eccentric, rambling, creative, and unpredictable. Some viewers won’t like this nonconformist storytelling style, but others will appreciate it. The movie gets its title from the fact that the swimming pool at Swamp Dogg’s house is being painted while he tells his story during this biographical documentary, which blends archival footage with footage filmed specifically for the documentary. By the end of the movie, the artwork painting in the swimming pool is revealed.

Directed by Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson, “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” is narrated by musician/visual artist Greg Grease. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” jumps back and forth between being a retrospective and being a present-day chronicle of what Swamp Dogg was doing with his life at the time this documentary was filmed.

Swamp Dogg was born as Jerry Williams Jr. on July 12, 1942, in Portsmouth, Virginia. He’s not a household name, but he’s written about 2,000 songs and worked with 500 artists, according to Grease’s narration in the documentary. Swamp Dogg has co-written some well-known hits, including Gene Pitney’s 1969 song “She’s a Heartbreaker” and “She’s All I’ve Got,” a 1971 song originally recorded by R&B singer Freddie North and made more famous by country singer Johnny Paycheck.

Black artists who make music tend to be stereotyped as only capable of working in certain genres, such as R&B, funk, dance, hip-hop, jazz and blues. Unlike many of his peers, Swamp Dogg defied those stereotypes by also working in country music as well as R&B and funk. His unconventionality didn’t catapult him to superstar status, but he’s been a well-respected artist precisely because of being so authentic to himself.

“Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” begins by showing the pool painter arriving at the Swamp Dogg’s house in California’s San Fernando Valley. Also living at the house are Swamp Dogg’s musical partners Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, who also give their insights and commentary. The documentary shows some of the trio’s jam sessions and songwriting collaborations, which aren’t spectacular but aren’t terrible either.

Swamp Dogg and Moogstar have a relationship that’s similar to the musical partnership that George Clinton and Bootsy Collins had when they were band members in Parliament-Funkadelic. Moogstar has a persona that’s reminiscent of Collins because Moogstar dresses flamboyantly and often talks in “trippy” ways, like he’s on another planet. Guitar Shorty, a longtime venerated blues musician, is not as talkative as Moogstar. But since Guitar Shorty is in the same age group as Swamp Dogg, Guitar Shorty’s has a valuable perspective of certain eras that he lived through long before many other people in the documentary were born.

Swamp Dogg gives a brief overview of his earliest years in the music business. In 1954, when he was 12, his first recording “HTD Blues (Hardsick Troublesome Downout Blues)” was released on the Mechanic record label in 1954. Back then, he used the stage name Little Jerry Williams and continued to record under than name into his teenage years and 20s. In 1964, he had a minor hit with “I’m the Lover Man,” a song which he wrote. His breakthrough song as Little Jerry Williams was “Baby You’re My Everything,” which reached No. 32 on the R&B single chart in 1966.

Throughout the late 1960s, he continued to work as a solo artists and as a songwriter and producer for other artists, including Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles, Dee Dee Warwick and Doris Duke. It was during this period of time that he also began collaborating with Gary U.S. Bonds (real name: Gary Anderson), who’s had a prolific career as a singer/songwriter. By the end of the 1960s, Williams wanted a change and reinvented himself.

Williams changed his name to Swamp Dogg in 1970. The 1970s were a decade that also marked his transformation as an outspoke political activist. He began to experiment more with the then-emerging genres of funk and psychedelic soul. But this experimentation also included getting scathing criticism for his 1971 album of cover songs “Rat On!,” which was a sales flop.

In the documentary, Swamp Dogg speaks with fondness of joining the “Free the Army” tour, an anti-Vietnam War tour that also featured left-wing progressive Jane Fonda and Dick Gregory. The documentary makes this statement: “His radical political views got him placed on the FBI’s watch list and dropped from Elektra Records.”

Swamp Dogg candidly shares that the 1970s were a decade of his greatest commercial success and most destructive personal excesses. He spent a lot of time back then recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. “I became a millionaire down there,” Swamp Dogg comments. “I was eating Zoloft like you eat M&Ms.”

All the drug-taking made him paranoid that people were out to trick him and kill him, Swamp Dogg says. It was a period of time when he bought nine cars that he didn’t need. Swamp Dogg reflects on his tendency at the time to want to show off with material possessions: “I wanted to be grand, but that’s not what it’s all about.”

Swamp Dogg, who says he is accustomed to having strong women in his family, gives credit to his wife Yvonne for being a steady presence in his life and keeping him from getting too out of control. The couple got married in 1963. Yvonne became his business partner, who managed many his dealings in the volatile music industry. Yvonne died in 2003, but the documentary has some archival footage of her.

Swamp Dogg’s daughter Dr. Jeri Williams (whom he calls his “main daughter” out of his five daughters) is interviewed in the documentary. She says she “feels sort of bad” that he put some of his career to the side to help raise her and her siblings. She compares her father to being a like a CIA operative with secrets, because she says that there are many things in his life that she doesn’t know about and he won’t discuss.

“Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” shows the expected array of clippings from magazine and newspapers, as well interviews and appearances on radio and TV, for the “blast from the past” parts of the documentary. Not surprisingly, some of the footage is grainy, which fits this scrappy, low-budget documentary just fine. There are slightly amusing mentions and clips of Swamp Dogg’s 2021 appearance on “The People’s Court” (a reality TV show for small-claims court cases), when musician Lloyd Wright sued him $1,425, for non-payment of 19 musical tracks. Swamp Dogg lost his case on “The People’s Court” and didn’t seem bothered by it in the show’s post-judgment interview with him.

Aside from Swamp Dogg’s confession to having a drug problem in the 1970s, he doesn’t get too revealing in the documentary about any of his personal shortcomings or scandals. The documentary is quirky in telling some things that we really didn’t need to know about Swamp Dogg. For example, Swamp Dogg says that he got a vasectomy in 1996. He claims it was Yvonne’s idea.

The documentary shows Swamp Dogg getting some celebrity admirers as visitors while his pool is being painted. They include actor/comedian Johnny Knoxville, “SpongeBob SquarePants” creator Tom Kenny, animator Mike Judge (best known for “Beavis and Butt-Head”), visual artist Art Fein and songwriters Jenny Lewis and John Prine. Lewis and Prine collaborated on some of the songs on Swamp Dogg’s 2020 album “Sorry You Couldn’t Make It.” Toward the end of the documentary, there’s footage of a backyard barbecue party for Swamp Dogg’s house, with some of these famous guests in attendance.

Some famous entertainers have the type of personality where a “hangout” documentary is a better fit for them, compared to a “tell all” exposé. Swamp Dogg is one of those artists. A great deal of “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” is nostalgic. But the overall feeling is that Swamp Dogg isn’t stuck in the past and is still living life to the fullest in the present.

Magnolia Pictures released “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted” in Los Angeles on May 2, 2025, and in New York City on May 9, 2025.

Review: ‘The Luckiest Man in America,’ starring Paul Walter Hauser, Walton Goggins, Shamier Anderson, Brian Geraghty, Patti Harrison, David Strathairn, Johnny Knoxville and Maisie Williams

May 8, 2025

by Carla Hay

“The Luckiest Man in America”

Directed by Samir Oliveros

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, in 1984, the dramatic film “The Luckiest Man in America” (based on true events) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A man has a record-breaking winning streak on the game show “Press Your Luck,” and the show’s employees frantically try to find out behind the scenes if he is cheating.

Culture Audience: “The Luckiest Man in America” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies about TV scandals or con artists.

Walton Goggins in “The Luckiest Man in America” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“The Luckiest Man in America” is a well-acted character study that’s fascinating but incomplete. This drama omits many interesting details of the real-life story of Michael Larson, who won a record-breaking 1984 jackpot on the game show “Press Your Luck.” Larson’s long history as a con artist before and after this jackpot is hinted at but never fully explored in this mixed bag of a movie, which has an underwhelming ending.

Directed by Samir Oliveros, “The Luckiest Man in America” was co-written by Oliveros and Briggs. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. In May 1984, Larson (who died in 1999, at the age of 49) won $110,237 on “Press Your Luck.” At the time, it was the largest jackpot in U.S. game show history. For the purposes of this review, the real Larson will be referred to by his last name, while the characters in the movie are referred to by their first names.

“Press Your Luck” (created by Bill Carruthers and Jan McCormack) originally aired on CBS from 1983 to 1986. “Press Your Luck” was revived in 2019 on ABC. In each “Press Your Lock” game episode, three contestants answer trivia questions. The contestant who is the first to anwer a trivia question correctly earns a “spin” on a crossword puzzle-styled game board displayed on a large video screen. In each square shown on the board is either a prize (usually cash) or a goblin-like cartoon figure called a Whammy. For each “spin,” the contestant presses a button that creates movement across the board. The contestant can control when to start and stop each spin.

When the spin movement stops, whatever is shown in the square that’s highlighted at the end of that stop is what the contestant will get. If the highlighted square is a prize, the contestant will get the prize. If the prize is something such as a trip, the cash value of that prize is counted for the contestant’s total. If the highlighted square at the end of a spin stop is a Whammy, then the contestant loses everything that was accumulated in the game and has to start over until the game time ends. The contestant with the highest cash total at the end of the game is declared the winner.

The “press your luck” aspect of the game has two meanings: Contestants have to press the button to stop and start on what they hope will be a square with a prize. But the “press your luck” aspect also has to do with contestants with the spin control of the board having to decide if they should keep going with the button pushing or if they should stop, so as not to risk getting a Whammy. If a contestant chooses to stop, the trivia round part of the game opens up again so all three contestants get a chance to get control of the board.

In real life, Larson had a “too good to be true” winning streak where he kept winning prize after prize and avoided the Whammy. Did he cheat or did he find a flaw in the system that allowed him to legally win these prizes? This review won’t answer that question because many people watching the movie won’t know until the movie reveals the answer about halfway through the story. Viewers who already know what happened in real life will probably more bored with this movie than viewers who don’t know what happened before seeing this film,.

“The Luckiest Man in America” (which takes place over a few days in May 1984) begins by showing 35-year-old Michael Larson (played by Paul Walter Hauser) doing an audition interview at a “Press Your Luck” production office at CBS’s Television City studio complex in Los Angeles. Some of the movie’s production design and cinematography makes it look like it’s set in 1970s, not the 1980s. The main clues that the movie takes place in the 1980s are scenes that show 1980s-styled cars, computers and VCRs.

Michael (who has grayish white hair and looks about 20 years older than his real age) is unkempt and schlubby, with a bushy beard and and uncombed hair. Michael is visibly nervous and gives a tacky-looking plate with a hand-drawn Whammy on it as a gift to the two interviewers: “Press Your Luck” creator/director Bill Carruthers (played by David Strathairn) and a “Press Your Luck” executive producer named Chuck (played by Shamier Anderson), who is looking for authentic contestants.

Michael is not an authentic contestant. It turns out he snuck into the audition by using the name of another person named Travis Dunne, who was selected for this audition. (Travis Dunne is never seen in the movie.) The only truthful things that Michael said in the interview is that Michael is from Lebanon, Ohio, and he works as an air conditioning repairman. During the summer, he also operates an ice cream truck.

When Michael’s impersonation ruse is discovered, he admits his real name is Michael Larson. He says that he only impersonated someone else out of despertation because he applied to be on “Press Your Luck” several times but never got a response. Michael’s excuse is not accepted, so he is told to leave immediately.

But something about Michael intrigues Bill, who wants to give Michael another chance. Bill immediately finds Michael in his ice cream truck in the studio parking lot. Bill tells Michael that he can be a contestant on the show if Michael cleans up his physical appearance (by dressing better and having tidier hair) and coming back to the studio promptly the next morning. Michael eagerly agrees to this deal.

Michael’s ice cream truck (which has the company name The Magic Garvey) parked in the studio lot is a contrivance for this movie because of certain things that happen later, when his truck becomes the center of an investigation. In real life, Larson did not drive his truck from Ohio to California. He took the trip by airplane.

Michael and other “Press Your Luck” contestants are given a short tour of Television City by a production assistant named Sylvia (played by Maisie Williams), a stressed-out Brit who becomes even more stressed-out when Michael begins acting erratically and occasionally disappears from the studio set during breaks after the game begins. The other two contestants in this game are an amiable Baptist minister named Ed Long (played by Brian Geraghty) and a smirky dental assistant named Janie Litras (played by Patti Harrison), with Michael seated in between Ed and Janie.

The host of “Press Your Luck” is Peter Tomarken (played by Walton Goggins), a toothy emcee who seems like he’s a game show host because he couldn’t be a successful stand-up comedian. Peter tells lukewarm and corny jokes that would probably get him heckled at a stand-up comedy club but get laughter and applause in this TV studio because staffers are holding up cue cards telling the studio audience how to react. When Michael goes on a winning streak, Peter reacts as if he doesn’t know if he’s witnessing a train wreck or a happy miracle.

Backstage, things aren’t quite as dubious about how certain people on the staff feel about Michael’s winning streak. At first, Bill thinks is amused by Michael because Bill thinks Michael is an eccentric underdog who makes for good television. When a control-room assistant director named Todd (played by David Rysdahl) asks Bill, “Where do you get these people?” Bill smugly answers, “What can I say? The crazies come to me.” Bill’s attitude then begins to change when he and Chuck begin to suspect that Michael is cheating, but they haven’t figured out how.

During breaks, Michael nervously makes phone calls in a hallway because he says he’s trying to reach his daughter Susie (played by Carlota Castro) to wish her a happy birthday, who’s about 7 or 8 years old. He really isn’t supposed to be making these phone calls, because it’s against the contestant rules to make or receive calls while they’re playing the game, but Sylvia let Michael use the phone because she fell for his sob story about Michael wanting to talk to Susie on her birthday.

During the contestant introductions part of the show, Michael mentions Susie and his wife Patricia. He gives the impression that he’s a happily married family man. The truth is much different: He’s been separated from Patricia (played by Haley Bennett), who has another man in her household: Lyle Roberts (played by Stefano Meier), whose relationship to Patricia and Michael is eventually revealed in the movie.

Michael acts suspiciously from the beginning, like he’s on the verge of a sweaty meltdown, but a lot of it looks fabricated for the movie. During one of his breaks backstage, he takes a detour into a studio where a talk show is being recorded, and he starts talking to host Leon Hart (played by Johnny Knoxville), as if Michael is in a therapy session. It’s a surreal part of the movie that is meant to show that Michael is starting to lose touch with reality.

Hauser gives a compelling performance as fidgety Michael, whose methods and motives become clearer as time goes on. The other cast members do well-enough in ther roles, althoug many of the supporting characters seem underdeveloped. Where the movie falls short is not showing or not telling who Michael was before he was on this game show and how the prize money (and the high-profile scandal) affected his life. Despite an ending that falls a little flat, “The Luckiest Man in America” can be passably entertaining to watch, but it’s not the type of movie that will become a beloved classic.

IFC Films (now known as Independent Film Company) released “The Luckiest Man in America” in select U.S. cinemas on April 4, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on May 6, 2025.

Review: ‘Jackass Forever,’ starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, ‘Danger’ Ehren McGhehey, Chris Pontius, Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuña, Sean ‘Poopies’ McInerney and Zach Holmes

February 4, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Jackass Forever”

Directed by Jeff Tremaine

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the comedy film “Jackass Forever” features a cast of predominantly white people (with some African Americans) performing physically painful stunts, as well as playing pranks on each other and some unsuspecting people.

Culture Clash: This group of comedic pranksters push themselves to the limit in how far they will go to get laughs, even if some members of the group object to how dangerous these stunts can be.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of fans of MTV’s “Jackass” TV series, “Jackass Forever” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in movies where adults engage in a lot of cringe-inducing antics.

Chris Pontius, Preston Lacy, Steve-O, Dark Shark, Dave England, Zach Holmes, Eric Manaka, Jasper, Sean “Poopies” McInerney, and Danger Ehren in “Jackass Forever” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures and MTV Entertainment Studios)

“Jackass Forever” delivers everything you’d expect it to deliver to “Jackass” fans: a compilation of gross-out comedy stunts and silly pranks. The movie doesn’t try to pretend to be anything else, although some parts of the movie are unnecessary filler. “Jackass Forever” reunites many of the original cast members of MTV’s “Jackass” reality TV series, which was on the air from 2000 to 2002, and spawned many spinoff series and movies.

“Jackass” was created by Johnny Knoxville (the franchise’s biggest star and on-screen ringleader), Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze. Knoxville, Tremaine and Jonze are producers of “Jackass Forever,” while Tremaine is the movie’s director. Jonze and Tremaine make brief on-camera appearances in “Jackass Forever.”

If you’re easily offended by movies that have numerous scenes talking about and showing naked male genitalia and bodily functions, then “Jackass Forever” should be avoided. However, people who can tolerate this type of comedy will find something to laugh at in “Jackass Forever.” Almost everyone seeing this movie will have some kind of awareness that anything with the “Jackass” franchise name on it will have crude and sometimes nauseating comedy. Pity any uptight person who sees this movie and is completely clueless beforehand on what to expect.

In “Jackass Forever,” Knoxville is joined by other members of the original “Jackass” cast: Steve-O (whose real name is Stephen Glover), Chris Pontius, Dave England, “Danger” Ehren McGhehey, Preston Lacy and Jason “Wee Man” Acuña. Original “Jackass” cast member Ryan Dunn died in a car accident in 2011, at the age of 34. (“Jackass Forever” flashes a brief tribute to him during the end credits.)

Bam Margera, another original “Jackass” cast member, was set to be in “Jackass Forever,” but he was reportedly fired after failing a drug test. (He tested positive for Adderall.) Margera has since had disputes with the “Jackass” team, and Tremaine filed a restraining order against Margera. “Jackass Forever” has some archival footage of “Jackass” where Margera can briefly be seen. Margera is not in any of the new footage that’s in “Jackass Forever.”

Also part of the “Jackass Forever” on-screen team are Sean “Poopies” McInerney (a self-described “Jackass” superfan) and Zach Holmes. The large sizes of Holmes and Lacy are used in a “Triple Wedgie” challenge with Wee Man, who happens to be a little person. Holmes, Lacy and Wee Man are wearing white mawashi-styled (sumo wrestler) loincloth in this wedgie challenge. It’s a scene in “Jackass Forever” that might offend some people who think body sizes are being exploited and ridiculed in this scene.

“Jackass Forever” has made some attempt to bring more diversity to the “Jackass” on-screen team. There’s a token female: Rachel Wolfson, the only woman who’s part of this prankster group. She actually has more stamina than many of the men in the group, who scream in terror at things that Wolfson can endure with silent aplomb. And there are some African Americans who are new to the “Jackass” franchise: Eric Manaka and Jasper (no last name) are both presented as part of the main group too. Jasper gets the most screen time out of all three of them.

“Jackass Forever” also has some celebrity cameos, with the unsuspecting celebs getting pranked. Musician/actor Machine Gun Kelly (also known as Colson Baker) gets sucker punched into a swimming pool in a stunt with Steve-O involving a stationary bicycle challenge and giant toy hands. Comedian/actor Eric André also gets blindsided: He’s hit with a giant tube-shaped balloon that bursts out of a beverage truck where André thinks he’s getting a free cup of coffee. Hip-hop music artist Tyler, the Creator is a pianist in a skit where he plays music while members of the “Jackass” team wear tuxedos and dance on a floor that gives electroshocks through the floor. Tyler, the Creator doesn’t escape these electroshocks either.

“Jackass Forever” has some stunts that are somewhat boring and over-used, compared to others. There’s a high-flying stunt with members of the group doing BMX riding on a “human ramp,” with the expected bike crashes and falls that ensue. Another stunt shows some members of the “Jackass” group dressed up as a marching band, and they walk on a treadmill, which predictably results in more tumbles and bruises. Knoxville catapults a soccer ball at Steve-O when he comes out of a production trailer on the movie set.

And there are explosions galore. Steve-O is using a porta potty when it explodes on him. In the movie’s opening sequence, another porta potty explodes on him, with feces (or something that looks like feces) flying everywhere and splattered all over Steve-O. In another scene, Knoxville, dressed as Icarus, explodes himself out of a cannon. Knoxville comments on this cannonball experience: “It feels like a 200-pound colonic up my ass!” And the movie ends with different types of explosions, involving vomiting on a Tilt-A-Whirl and being attacked by paintball gun attacks.

In one of the funniest scenes, England portrays a potential customer at a fake yard sale on someone’s front lawn. Unbeknownst to the people browsing at this yard sale, there’s a toilet “for sale” that’s been rigged to explode. First, England sits on the toilet as if to use it, while unsuspecting people look on in shock and disgust. No sooner does he sit on the toilet, then it explodes, as people react with horror. It’s a stunt that “Jackass” has done before. “Jackass Forever” features some other recycled stunts, with a select number of the original stunts shown in archival footage.

And speaking of doing “Candid Camera”-type of pranks on unsuspecting people outside of the group, “Jackass” has a few more. One of these pranks is when Knoxville reprises his disguised persona as an elderly grouch named Irv Zisman. As Irv, he goes into a furniture store with Wolfson (who plays Irv’s granddaughter), while Holmes pretends to be another customer. Holmes then falls from the second floor of the store and crashes into a piece of furniture that catapults Knoxville up like a cannon and causes Knoxville to crash through a ceiling.

Some of the most memorable stunts tap into the biggest fears that the “Jackass” team members have: damage to genitalia and being trapped somewhere with a wild animal that can cause bodily harm. Steve-O volunteers to have his naked genitals covered in bees. Lacy puts his genitals in a hole in a box and gets the genitals pummelled by mechanical fists.

Pontius encloses his penis in a ping-pong paddle device and “plays” with himself. (Use your imagination.) Wolfson says to him: “You’ll never be president [of the United States].” Poopies then jokes, “You never know. I’d vote for him.”

Danger Ehren endures the notorious Cup Test, where he wears a plastic cup guard over his genitals, but still voluntarily undergoes assaults to his groin area. His genitals are subjected to hard punches from mixed-martial-arts heavyweight Francis Ngannu; torpedo-like softball pitches from softball player Erin O’Toole; a hockey puck whacked by hockey player P.K. Subban; and pogo stick jumping from Poopies.

Animals that can kill humans are brought into the mix to bring on more terror. (In most cases, an animal trainer is nearby to prevent things from getting out of control.) Wolfson undergoes a “Scorpion Botox” challenge, where she has to let a scorpion bite her on the lip more than once. Poopies, England, Danger Ehren and Holmes are set up in “The Silence of the Lambs” challenge, where they are put in a dark room with a poisonous snake on the loose. In another stunt, Poopies loses a “mime” challenge and has to kiss a rattlesnake, which does exactly what you think it will do.

Jasper’s father—who goes by the nickname Dark Shark and is a self-described former gang banger—is recruited as a guest “Jackass” team participant. Dark Shark literally faces off against Danger Ehren in a challenge involving them wearing astronaut-sized glass helmets connected by a long tube. A large spider is then dropped into the tube, as Dark Shark and Danger Ehren frantically try to get the spider to go to the other person’s side of the tube and into the other person’s helmet. Later, Danger Ehren has the spider bite him on a nipple. Someone quips about the spider bite swelling the nipple: “Ehren went from a [bra size] AAA to a B.”

And there are two separate stunts involving “Jackass” guys being tied up and used as food bait for wild animals. The first of these stunts that’s shown in the movie is with a brown bear that is let loose in a room with Danger Ehren, who has honey and salmon poured all over his crotch. In the other stunt, Wee Man is tied up outdoors, with meat placed on him for a vulture to eat. Dark Shark is goaded into letting the vulture on his arm, and he shrieks that the vulture is biting him, when the vulture actually isn’t. Jasper than mutters on camera that he’s embarrassed by his father at that moment.

And it should come as no surprise that “Jackass Forever” uses semen (human and non-human) as part of the shenanigans. The movie’s opening sequence is a scripted scenario where members of the “Jackass” team are making a “monster on the loose” disaster movie, using miniature sets made to look like New York City. Pontius’ genitalia is used as a penis-sized dragon puppet running amok on the streets. You can guess that this dragon doesn’t spout fire but instead spouts something else on people. There’s another part of the movie where an unsuspecting England gets buckets of pig semen dumped on him. “I’m a vegetarian!” he says in disgust after finding out what was dumped on him, while everyone nearby laughs.

Even though “Jackass Forever” has a lot of high-risk stunts and pranks, a few of the stunts are tedious and weren’t worth putting in the movie. In one set-up, Knoxville instructs Wee Man to catch the much-larger and much-heavier Lacy and hold Lacy up in the air above his head, just like the famous dance move that Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey did near the end of “Dirty Dancing.” But this “Dirty Dancing” stunt never happened, because Lacy announces that he defecated on himself and pulls down his pants to prove it. (At least he gave enough advance warning, so viewers can look away.)

The anal fixation continues in a stunt where Steve-O is in a water tank, with the idea that he will fart underwater, and a methane-filled device nearby will cause an explosion. But apparently, the “Jackass” people don’t know basic chemistry about gas and water mixing, because this “experiment” doesn’t work until they bring in a methane blowtorch to force an explosion. It’s a stunt that’s ill-conceived and looks more like a clumsy outtake than something that deserved to be in the movie.

Don’t expect “Jackass” to show anything about the individual personal lives of these stunt/prank daredevils. Most of their personalities are indistinguishable from each other. Exceptions are obvious group leader Knoxville (who carries around a small taser that he uses to randomly zap people on the “Jackass” team) and Steve-O, who has long had the reputation of being the “craziest” of the “Jackass” team. Steve-O is the one most likely to laugh at himself and others during the most insane moments.

Out of everyone in the group, Danger Ehren gets the most methods of “torture” inflicted on him in “Jackass Forever,” by doing the most dangerous and nerve-wracking stunts that leave him bloodied and bruised. Knoxville does even more damage to himself, but from one stunt: While recreating a previous “Jackass” stunt where he tries to be like a bull matador in a pen with an angry bull, Knoxville (dressed as a magician) gets knocked out by a charging bull. He’s then shown being carried out on a stretcher, and then later getting out of a hospital. After being discharged from the hospital, Knoxville tells the camera that his bull-charging injuries were a broken wrist, a broken rib and a concussion.

As a disclaimer, “Jackass Forever” has warnings before and after the movie that all of the stunts were performed by professionals and shouldn’t be attempted by anyone else. It’s kind of a “covering our asses legally” façade though, because everyone knows that “Jackass” has inspired an entire industry of daredevil (mostly male) pranksters who want to be stars on social media for doing idiotic things that could cause bodily harm. As dopey and reckless as the “Jackass” franchise can be, if the purpose is to make people laugh, then “Jackass Forever” fulfills that purpose, although some people might laugh more than others.

Paramount Pictures released “Jackass Forever” in U.S. cinemas on February 4, 2022.

Review: ‘Above Suspicion’ (2021), starring Emilia Clarke, Jack Huston and Johnny Knoxville

May 30, 2021

by Carla Hay

Jack Huston and Emilia Clarke in “Above Suspicion” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Above Suspicion” (2021)

Directed by Phillip Noyce

Culture Representation: Taking place in Kentucky from 1988 to 1989, the crime drama “Above Suspicion” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A drug-addicted woman becomes a confidential informant to the FBI, and complications ensue when she gets emotionally involved with the FBI agent who is her contact.

Culture Audience: “Above Suspicion” will appeal mostly to people who don’t mind watching predictable and pulpy crime movies that put more emphasis on being tacky than being suspenseful.

Johnny Knoxville and Emilia Clarke in “Above Suspicion” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

The cheap-looking and tawdry drama “Above Suspicion” is based on a true crime story, but the movie foolishly gives away the ending at the very beginning of the film. In other words, if viewers don’t know what happened in this case in real life, they’ll know exactly what the outcome is in the movie’s opening scene, which has a morbid “voice from the dead” narration from the movie’s main character. “Above Suspicion” just goes downhill from there.

Directed by Phillip Noyce, “Above Suspicion” is one of those “flashback” movies where the narrator is telling what happened in the past. And in this movie (which takes place in 1988 and 1989), the narrator tells viewers that she’s already dead. Her name is Susan Smith (played by Emilia Clarke), a divorced mother of two children. She was in her late 20s when she died.

In these flashbacks of her life, Susan is a cocaine-snorting, pill-popping, marijuana-smoking ne’er do well who makes money by committing fraud. She’s been collecting government welfare checks from the state of West Virginia, which she’s not entitled to have because she actually lives in Kentucky, where she gets welfare checks too. And occasionally, Susan sells drugs to make money.

In the movie’s opening scene, Susan says in a voiceover: “You know what’s the worst thing about being dead? You get too much time to think. Thinking is painful. Knowing things is painful.”

To serve as a warning to viewers, a better way to open this movie would have been: “You know what’s the worst thing about a brain-dead movie? It wastes too much time. Watching it is painful. Knowing this movie could be so much better is painful.”

And sitting through all the cringeworthy lines that stink up this movie is painful. Chris Gerolmo wrote the “Above Suspicion” screenplay, which is based on journalist Joe Sharkey’s 1993 non-fiction book of the same name. People who’ve read that book will probably find this movie difficult to watch because it takes what was fascinating about this true crime book and turns it into a trashy melodrama.

Clarke, who is British in real life, attempts to give a believable and edgy performance as a Kentucky mother who’s lost her way in life and ends up falling for and clinging to a seemingly straight-laced married FBI agent. But there are moments when Clarke’s true British mannerisms come through, such as when she slips up and says the word “whilst” instead of “while” during one of the many scenes where her Susan character is yelling at someone. “Whilst” is not the kind of word that would be in the vocabulary of a Kentucky hillbilly like Susan.

Because “Above Suspicion” reveals in the opening scene that Susan is dead, the rest of this 104-minute movie is really just a countdown to Susan’s death. Given the lifestyle that she leads and what’s at stake when Susan gets involved with a married FBI agent with a squeaky-clean reputation, it’s not hard to figure out how she’ll die. And it won’t be from a drug overdose. If viewers don’t know what happened to the real Susan Smith in this case before they see “Above Suspicion,” it’ll become pretty obvious what her fate will be soon after this movie begins.

Susan lives in a dirty and disheveled house in Pikeville, Kentucky, with her sleazy ex-husband Cash (played by Johnny Knoxville), who’s a small-time drug dealer. They’re still living together because they can’t afford to get their own separate places. (In real life, the name of Susan’s ex-husband was Kenneth, but he really was a drug dealer.) Susan and Cash’s two children—an unnamed daughter who’s 7 or 8 years old (played by Lex Kelli) and a son named Isom who’s 5 or 6 years old (played by Landon Durrance)—don’t say much, probably because they’re shell-shocked by living in such a dysfunctional home.

Someone who does talk a lot is Susan. She and Cash have arguments and physical fights with each other, and she gets irritable or impatient with almost anyone who crosses her path, except for her children. Two other people who live in Susan and Cash’s dumpy house are an unemployed couple in their 20s: Joe B. (played by Karl Glusman) and his girlfriend Georgia Beale (played by Brittany O’Grady), who don’t seem to do much but sleep all day. Joe met Cash when they were in prison together. Cash is the one who invited Joe to stay at the house after Joe got out of prison. Needless to say, Susan isn’t very happy about it.

In one of the movie’s early scenes, Joe makes inappropriate sexual comments to Susan, who understandably gets upset. Joe also calls her “Susie,” which she hates. But then, Susan also takes her anger out on Georgia about it. Susan bursts into the room where Georgia is sleeping and berates her about Joe being a creep. As Susan storms back out of the room, she screams at Georgia, “Pay me my rent money, bitch!”

Joe actually has been making money, but in an illegal way. He’s secretly a bank robber who has been targeting banks in cities near Pikeville, with Georgia’s help as his occasional getaway driver. Susan knows this secret because Joe’s red Chevy pickup truck fits the news media’s description of the getaway car. And she’s found Joe’s stash of cash with the guns that were used in the robberies.

“Above Suspicion” has some druggie party scenes that are exactly what people might expect. And it’s only a matter of time before fights break out at these parties. Susan’s volatile younger brother Bones (played by Luke Spencer Roberts) predictably gets in one of these fights, which leads to a particularly violent scene that was fabricated for this movie, just to add more melodrama.

Susan says in a voiceover: “Welcome to Pikeville, the town that never lets go.” She also says that in Pikeville, which is plagued by drug addiction, there are two main ways that people make money: “the funeral business or selling drugs.” And earlier in the film, this is how Susan describes herself: “I was a regular girl once. But things go wrong, as things will.”

Susan’s life takes a fateful turn when she meets Mark Putnam (played by Jack Huston), an ambitious and fairly new FBI agent, who has transferred to Pikeville to investigate the bank robberies. When Susan first sees Mark, who’s two years older than she is, she describes him like a hunk straight out of a romance novel. It’s lust at first sight for Susan.

And when Susan finds out that Mark is the FBI agent leading the investigation into the robberies, she sees it as an opportunity to get to know him better. It isn’t long before she drops hints to Mark that she knows who the bank robber is, but she’s afraid to be exposed as a snitch. Mark offers to pay Susan for bits and pieces of information, and she becomes his main confidential informant.

Susan dangles enough tips for Mark to investigate to keep him coming back for more. There’s an ulterior motive, of course. Susan wants to seduce Mark. And because Mark is so different from the men she’s used to being involved with, Susan starts to fall in love with him. However, it’s debatable whether it’s true love or if it’s Susan just wanting a ticket out of her dead-end life. At one point, when Mark asks Susan what she wants most in her life, she answers, “Rehab and money.”

Susan knows that Mark is happily married and has a baby daughter with his wife Kathy Putnam (played by Sophie Lowe), but that doesn’t seem to deter Susan from having a fantasy that Mark will eventually leave Kathy to be with Susan. When Susan and Mark meet in out-of-the-way and deserted places in other Kentucky cities such as Portersville and Martin, it’s just like the clandestine way that secret lovers meet. Susan starts to tell Mark that they both make a great team, but she wants to make their “partnership” about more than FBI work.

“Above Suspicion” portrays Susan as toning down some of her vulgar and mean-spirited ways to try to seduce Mark. She gives him a lot of flattery and attention. And anyone watching this movie will not be surprised when Mark starts to fall for Susan too because he’s become slightly bored with his marriage. But Mark doesn’t feel so strongly about Susan that he wants to leave his wife. Mark has a big ego, and he enjoys being with someone who fuels that ego. Huston’s portrayal of Mark is as someone whose top priority in life is being the best at his job and getting recognition and praise for it.

Even if Mark were an available bachelor, Mark and Susan’s relationship has too many other issues, including a power imbalance and a difference in their social classes. And most troubling of all for Mark’s career is that getting sexually involved with Susan is a breach of ethics and an automatic compromise of the evidence that Mark is getting from her for this investigation. And once the investigation is over, where does Susan fit into Mark’s life?

Clarke and Huston (who is also British in real life) aren’t terrible in their roles, but they are hindered by a subpar screenplay. Huston’s Mark character is often written as two-dimensional, while Clarke’s Susan character displays over-the-top trashiness that becomes increasingly annoying, especially when Susan begins stalking Mark and his wife Kathy. It’s supposed to make Susan look emotionally needy, lovesick and vulnerable, but her obsession with Mark only makes her look mentally unhinged. As for Knoxville, his abusive Cash character is just another version of the scumbags that Knoxville usually portrays in movies.

There are some supporting characters in the movie that don’t add much to the story. Susan has a concerned older sister named Jolene (played by Thora Birch), who lives in West Virginia and occasionally calls Susan. Mark has a colleague named Todd Eason (played by Chris Mulkey), who’s retiring from the FBI in six months. There are an informant named Denver Rhodes (played by Omar Benson Miller) and an international drug dealer named Rufus (played by Brian Lee Franklin), who both appear in the last third of the movie.

Noyce’s direction of “Above Suspicion” aims for the movie to be gritty noir, but it’s really just low-budget junk. It’s very easy to predict how this story is going to end. And until that ending, which Susan already blabbed about in the voiceover narration, it’s just one scene after another of contrasting Susan’s riff-raff life with Mark’s law-enforcement life. These two worlds end up crashing in the most horrific of ways. And it’s too bad that the overall result is that “Above Suspicion” is a cinematic train wreck.

Lionsgate released “Above Suspicion” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on May 14, 2021. The movie was released on Blu-ray and DVD on May 18, 2021.