Writer/director Michael Dowse and star Jay Baruchel find joy and inspiration in futility with the offbeat biopic The Stunt Driver.
The Stunt Driver is an adaptation of Robert Fortier’s classic documentary The Devil at Your Heels, which followed Canadian stunt driver Ken Carter in his multi-year effort to jump the mile-wide St. Lawrence River in a rocket car. The documentary also serves as The Stunt Driver‘s framing device, with the film shown primarily through the lens of Fortier (Joe Cobden) as he documents Carter (Jay Baruchel) for the National Film Board of Canada.
Reluctant rocket scientist Dick Keller (Ed Helms) has been commissioned to design the car that will make the leap, while manager Bill Wilkins (Dan Bakkedahl) handles media and financing. Carter’s long-suffering girlfriend Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf) is supportive but apprehensive, while his mentee Danny Lafortune (played by Marc Beaupré and based on stunt driver Kenny Powers) is perhaps a bit too eager to lend his support.
Carter initially finds support in his mission, securing not just the aforementioned documentary but the attention of rival Evel Knievel (Ben Foster) and a generous deal with ABC to broadcast the stunt on Wide World of Sports. But design and equipment delays push the schedule back by multiple years. Soon the only person who actually expects Carter to go through with it is Carter himself, and he must reckon with dwindling finances as well as his own insecurity if he has any hope of ever making the jump.
One helluva ride.
Photo Credit: IFC
Viewers will not need to be familiar with the Ken Carter story or that of any other daredevil to deduce there are only a few directions this can go, few of which are good. This is not a detriment to the film. If anything, it’s an asset. Writer/director Michael Dowse (Stuber, Goon) depicts Carter as a man living somewhere at the intersection of hubris and futility, then tells us all the reasons we should be charmed by him anyway. Carter is eccentric. He is flawed. But he’s so dogged in approach to life that one can’t help but be inspired by his tenacity.
It helps that so much of the actual Carter is present in the film. A good deal of the dialogue is taken almost verbatim from The Devil at Your Heels, preserving Carter’s unique colloquialisms and his tendency to circle around his actual point a time or two before getting there. Dowse clearly has a good deal of admiration for Carter, and also lacks the ego that would push many filmmakers to “improve” reality through creative flourishes.
Jay Baruchel doesn’t actually look much like Carter, who would have been the spitting image of a goateed Curtis Armstrong had this film been made thirty years earlier. But anyone who has seen the original documentary will watch Baruchel’s performance and recognize Carter’s particular vocal affect and his slightly cross-eyed stare. And they will have no problem believing that Carter will gladly sacrifice his own well-being for a chance at glory. Baruchel has had an extremely eclectic and interesting career, so it’s difficult to narrow down any one performance at his best. But this is certainly a contender.
The bottom line.
There are plenty of films where the supporting players get out of the way in order to allow the main character to shine. It’s a rare thing for a film to have both its director and its star do the same. The Stunt Driver acknowledges Carter as a man crippled by his own arrogance. It also paints a very motivating picture of the power of persistence. Carter, even amidst his failures, was an inspiring man. And the film’s lack of ego means that message comes through intact and without artifice. What a treat.
The Stunt Driver is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer below.
Images courtesy of IFC.
REVIEW RATING
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The Stunt Driver - 9/10
9/10
Brogan Luke Bouwhuis is a writer and film programmer whose frequent pop culture deep dives have allowed him to write about everything from the Richard Gere gerbil rumor to the history of the holiday yule log video. He co-hosts the Franchise Fiends podcast, co-captains the narrative shorts program at the Slamdance Film Festival, and co-created three children with his wife, Jessica.
