FEMALE doctor (Kamber Hejlik) nervously approaches 86-year-old Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) in a hospital waiting room.

"Your wife passed," the medic says solemnly.

A woman sitting next to Irving offers her condolences. "I thought she'd never die!" he cackles, confiding that his beloved Ellie denied him sex and is now in a better place.

At the subsequent funeral attended by unsuspecting mourners, Irving's heartfelt eulogy is interrupted by his pot-smoking daughter, Kimmy (Georgina Cates), who is heading to prison and needs her cranky father to look after her eightyear- old son, Billy (Jackson Nicholl).

"I'm a free man for the first time in 46 years and I can't be saddled with him!" growls Irving, as the stunned congregation overhears every word.

Thus Irving finds himself on a road trip to North Carolina to deliver the boy to his estranged father.

En route, the unlikely double- act terrorises unsuspecting members of the public, including a gaggle of women attending a male stripper show and fiercely competitive parents at the Carolina Cutie Beauty Pageant.

The Jackass pranksters, led by clown extraordinaire Knoxville, take their wince-inducing brand of tomfoolery to the next level in Bad Grandpa.

They hang the usual daredevil stunts and bad-taste humour on a gossamer thin narrative that is by turns touchingly sweet and eye-rollingly preposterous.

Gags in the film hit more than they miss, and some victim responses are priceless, like two women in a courier delivery store, who can't decide whether they can let Irving send Billy through the mail.