{"id":623461,"date":"2026-09-13T14:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T14:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623461\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T14:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T14:08:09","slug":"the-stunt-driver-review-jay-baruchel-in-a-tepid-doc-based-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623461\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Stunt Driver’ Review: Jay Baruchel in a Tepid, Doc-Based Biopic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn \u201cThe Stunt Driver<\/a>,\u201d Jay Baruchel<\/a> reteams with his \u201cGoon\u201d director Michael Dowse<\/a> and takes on a showy lead part as stunt driver Ken Carter, who\u2019s best remembered for a jump he didn\u2019t make: a proposed mile-long leap over the St. Lawrence River in a rocket-powered car. The five years spent on that ill-fated project were captured in the 1981 documentary \u201cThe Devil At Your Heels,\u201d which \u201cThe Stunt Driver\u201d credits as source material but doesn\u2019t improve on. While the technical aspects of the period recreation are impressive, this remake never finds its own reason to exist.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs in the doc, Carter is introduced executing a stunt jump which leaves him injured and begging the crowd not to leave, addressing them from the stretcher before being carried off. That naked lust for the adulation generated by danger is more bluntly stated when Carter repeats variations on \u201cI gotta jump, people like me\u201d as sufficient justification for his extremely dangerous stunt, the requirements of which include constructing a 90-foot ramp to launch the car. The documentary\u2019s archival footage is seamlessly intercut with staged recreations as Carter assembles a small team of enablers: engineer Dick Keller (Ed Helms), sports agent Bill Wilkins (Dan Bakkedahl), goofy Quebecois protege and hype-man Danny Lafortune (Marc Beaupr\u00e9). In standard biopic fashion, Ken\u2019s wife Gloria (Laurence Lebouef) is relegated to worrying and suffering in the background.<\/p>\n

\n\tGranted interviews with surviving friends and access to unused footage from the documentary, Dowse takes particular advantage of a forgotten radio interview in which Carter was hypnotized. While the additional insight from this rediscovered artifact provides the foundation for a degree of vulnerability and self-revelation that the documentary couldn\u2019t tap into, Carter\u2019s fears remains one-note even when grounded in reality. Carter\u2019s naked craving to be liked and the class-based chip on his shoulder take on sinister connotations at moments when Baruchel sounds strangely like Richard Nixon, further muddying the emotional waters.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen not mired in pathos, Baruchel plays Carter as an eccentric showboater, especially in his elaborate dialogue, which is far beyond the quotable but comparatively low-key man shown in the documentary; the final scene\u2019s slow dissolve fade from Baruchel to the real subject only heighten the oddities of the actor\u2019s performance. Speaking to the trade-war tensions of the present moment, \u201cThe Stunt Driver\u201d also makes Carter a zealous Canadian patriot who derides rival stuntman Evel Knievel (Ben Foster) as an unwelcome \u201cyankee doodle dandy\u201d and later yells, \u201cI eat Americans like you for breakfast!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBesides the additional psychologizing and final 20 minutes, which address Carter\u2019s years after the jump, the film makes one major alteration to the source text. Presumably because the name of the American stunt driver who took Carter\u2019s place on the jump, Kenny Powers (as in the protagonist of \u201cEastbound & Down\u201d), would be a distraction for many viewers, both name and personality have been changed to Quebecois comic relief Lafontaine. While both the casting and location choices honor Kane and Baruchel\u2019s shared Quebec background, the change of Powers\u2019 nationality omits another logical place to heighten the anti-American angle. (In a very specific feat, the film\u2019s most notable performance is arguably given by Joe Coben as \u201cDevil\u201d director Bob Fortier; the actor\u2019s speech patterns are eerily like the real \u201870s thing to a degree unheard since Jon Voight channeled Howard Cosell in \u201cAli.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first 80 minutes toggle between restaging scenes from the documentary while matching its academy ratio, and alternately providing additional context in widescreen, with a third aspect ratio thrown into the mix at the climax. The idea is clear: the documentary shows some but not all of the truth, so the new film is supplemented by a glossier but more emotionally truthful format and complemented at the end by a new format to heighten Carter\u2019s anxiety. DP Sara Mishara does a bravura job of using numerous formats (digital and actual 16mm, as well as 35mm stock, among others) and rendering them period-plausible as well as handsomely lit and colored in their own right. \u201cThe Stunt Driver\u201d is, nonetheless, slow going, and less enjoyable than the funnier, springier documentary it takes great pains to expand on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In \u201cThe Stunt Driver,\u201d Jay Baruchel reteams with his \u201cGoon\u201d director Michael Dowse and takes on a showy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,237088,39677,270,237089,1998],"class_list":["post-623461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jay-baruchel","tag-michael-dowse","tag-movies","tag-the-stunt-driver","tag-toronto-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}