Action Point (2018)

(In French, On TV, November 2020) It’s a great and terrible thing that, a few months ago, I watched Class Action Park, the documentary about the infamous 1970s–1990s New Jersey amusement and water park called “Action Park.” The documentary itself is terrific, based on events almost too ludicrous to be real. But it also knocks the wind away from any hook that comedy Action Point may have. Clearly inspired by Action Park, this Johnny Knoxville pain-fest relocates from New Jersey to inland California, and knocks production values down a few notches in portraying a run-down amusement park resorting to dangerous stunts in order to stay solvent. With Knoxville (of Jackass fame) at the helm, this means one dangerous stunt after another, regardless of whether they make sense. (The squirrel nuts sequence is a particularly blatant example, but by no means the only one.) There’s an attempt at emotional resonance awkwardly jammed in the works, but the highlights of the film are the cringe-inducing stunts—anyone with empathetic responses to pain will not have a good time here. Knoxville does make a good lead, however—although his attempts at playing older (literally—much of the film is a flashback story from grandfather to granddaughter) make everything feel even more dangerous than the carefree days of 2001 and the first Jackass movie. Action Point is often too blunt and crass to be funny, even though a few jokes land here and there. But the biggest knock against it is that it simply doesn’t even equal to the real thing—try watching Class Action Park and even the documentary will feel more dangerous and darkly funny than even this fictional take on it.