The Stunt Driver, 2026.
Written and Directed by Michael Dowse.
Starring Jay Baruchel, Ed Helms, Ben Foster, Laurence Leboeuf, Dan Bakkedahl, Joe Cobden, Marc Beaupré, Dan Bakkedahl, Noah Labranche, Derek Johns, Mitchell Cohen, Michael Rogoff, Oliver Ocampo, and Sophie-Thérèse Stone-Richards.
SYNOPSIS:
The film chronicles the daredevil stuntman Ken Carter’s quest to execute a bold stunt of launching a rocket car across the St. Lawrence River from Canada to the United States in the 1970s, facing absurd challenges along the way.
In writer/director Michael Dowse’s The Stunt Driver, which is a riveting and humorously pointed character study until it spirals out of control like a vehicle flipping over and exploding at 200 miles an hour, professional thrillseeker and self-proclaimed “Canadian Madman” Ken Carter (played by Jay Baruchel, who resembles the real man and captures the baggage beneath the surface of his reckless drive) doesn’t like to be called a daredevil. That’s for Evel Knievel (also a strong performance, played by Ben Foster, capturing numerous mannerisms and a gentler, more human side behind the outrageous spectacle), who at this point in the 1970s has traded cars for rockets. Ken insists there is a difference between the two, that he should be called a stunt driver, and that his rival (something that clearly existed, even if he occasionally tries to play it down) is a wuss.
That’s ultimately because, as a hypnosis framing device sets up, this is a film not only about the courage that it takes for such men to go through such dangerous and, quite frankly, stupid fake-tempting jumps (typically over cars or buses), but the insecurities and projection that would, in the case of Ken, bring him to the profession in the first place. It’s also inherently romantic to him, with one particular stunt set to have a bed of roses for the landing zone, symbolizing that he is always thinking about returning to his beloved partner, Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf). Of course, it’s also about taking shots that cement a legacy and the prospect of living forever without financial concern.
In a world, and especially a cinematic landscape, where so many stories (dramatized or documentary) about risk-taking adrenaline junkies lack an emotional connection, it’s also refreshing that a good portion of the film is simply about a man who, through justifiable chronic thinking and jokes, is afraid to admit he is terrified. Specifically, Ken is preparing something undeniably insane that even Evel Knievel is skeptical of, which is installing a rocket into a car (working alongside friend and expert car technician Dick Keller, played by Ed Helms in a rare but welcome and serviceable dramatic role) that will need to be speeding at 280 miles an hour to jump a ramp starting in Canada and over the St. Lawrence River, landing somewhere in New York.
Connected to the National Film Board of Canada, a documentary crew led by Joe Cobden’s Bob Fortier also follows the project, giving Michael Dowse ample room to be flexible, mixing aspect ratios and switching between widescreen and box formats. This helps ensure the more dramatized, cinematic moments feel, well, like a movie and the conversational bits more like a documentary. The latter mostly captures the anxiety-ridden, arduous process of building everything from the vehicle to the ramp and ensuring safety, while actual footage of Ken Carter’s jumps is seamlessly woven into the proceedings. With that said, it is certainly an impressive feat of editing by Reg Harkema while never losing sight of the fact that behind this spectacle is a real human being contemplating what he has signed up for, usually to the tune of others who, eventually, after numerous delays, come to only see dollar signs as the entire experiment becomes a giant money sink.
Ken is also supported by an aspiring stunt driver, Daniel Lafortune (Marc Beaupré), while his relationship suffers over the years because of setbacks that call into question whether the madman will ever attempt the river jump. For about an hour, the stakes are felt, the comedy properly comes across as deflection from insecurities, and the momentum building up to the jump is, no pun intended, full throttle, with several heated arguments wisely making use of the multi-ratio format. Through this, Jay Baruchel delivers one of his best performances, fully tapping into Ken Carter’s bumpy psychological state.
Then something almost certainly true-to-life happens, except it’s also a prominent cliché of any movie involving cars or daredevil stunts. The issue is that it sets The Stunt Driver on a different road that consistently feels like no one is in the driver’s seat, with no clear idea of how this should end beyond more jumping through the years and the rest of Ken’s life. Not only is this awkward and aimless, but the point of the film and what it is studying and seemingly trying to say about Ken Carter and this dangerous profession seem to disappear in sticking to depicting more and more of the facts. It essentially comes across as Michael Dowse realizing there was only an hour of material for the script and, instead of building a climax around a shorter movie, deciding to stretch it into an unwieldy experience.
While that first hour of The Stunt Driver is insightful and funny, the third act certainly hits some bumps in the road, going a bit too big and blowing up the dramatization. Just like Ken Carter, bones may be broken from making a career of this madness, but he, like the movie, is still relatively held together by undeniably top-notch career work from Jay Baruchel.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
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