The Stunt Driver Overview: Jay Baruchel in Enjoyable Canadian Nineteen Seventies Throwback

“Ken Carter jumps cars for a living, and people like to see him do it,” declares Gordon Pinsent, narrator of the 1981 National Film Board of Canada-produced documentary “The Devil at Your Heels,” over footage of the person in query being pushed away in an ambulance after smashing up his ankle trying to vault a ’64 Chevy over 12 vehicles. It’s a concise description of the stuntman and daredevil’s private ambition and the mortal failure he dangers each time he performs. A born showman who “left school at 14 with a grade-four education” and refused a nine-to-five workaday life, Carter devoted his life to death-defiance largely as a bid to attain cultural immortality. “Before he’s finally through,” Pinsent proclaims, “Ken Carter wants to amaze the world.”

Directed by Robert Fortier, “The Devil at Your Heels,” profiles Carter as he tries to leap a rocket-powered automobile over the Saint Lawrence River, a one-mile-long stream that separates Canada and America. The movie chronicles the tumultuous five-year journey via numerous technical challenges with the automobile and the ramp, bouts of ill-timed uncooperative climate that regularly delay manufacturing, and the unceasing monetary challenges to funding and selling the stunt itself. In the middle of myriad behind-the-scenes shenanigans involving a number of exploding gas tanks and Hollywood backers wanting to promote an occasion movie in any respect prices, Carter and his aim stay, whilst his nerve is examined, and the end line retains receding into the space.

Canadian filmmaker Michael Dowse, the director of proudly regional comedies like “FUBAR” and “Goon,” whose topics are lovable, debaucherous underdogs, is probably going the right individual to fictionalize such a wealthy piece of Canadian historical past. “The Stunt Driver” lovingly cannibalizes Fortier’s documentary by following its broad construction and semi-faithfully reenacting a lot of its basic scenes, just like the paunchy Carter struggling to get into his ill-fitting jumpsuit, typically with the topics’ precise phrases used for dialogue by his ensemble of comedian actors. Yet Dowse doesn’t precisely got down to write, co-produce, and direct a story photocopy of a non-fiction movie. Instead, he makes use of “The Devil at Your Heels” as each a basis and springboard to discover the interior disaster of a person whose dedication to flying via the air is at odds along with his wavering mettle.

“The Stunt Driver” opens on Carter, performed by Jay Baruchel, who exaggerates the actual man’s bravado to comedian and poignant ends, present process hypnosis reside on a Montreal radio program to probe the roots of his fears. Under that framework, Dowse’s movie then depicts Carter’s campaign to leap the river, from enlisting engineer Dick Keller (Ed Helms, enjoying a fictionalized model of dragster Slam’n Sammy Miller) to assist construct a rocket automobile that may face up to such a feat, and promoter Bill Wilkins (Dan Bakkedahl, loosely based mostly on sports activities agent Edward Keating) to promote his stunt to ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” at the least that’s the plan earlier than earlier than the cash dries up after preparation drags on for years. Eventually, Wilkins scraps the thought of a televised occasion, together with a reside viewers, in favor of a movie bought to Japanese buyers for a world viewers.

Meanwhile, a small documentary crew, led by a fictional Fortier (Joe Cobden), movies Carter alongside his spouse Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf) over years as he confidently boasts on digicam about his pleasure to make the leap whereas he privately frets about his possibilities of getting burned up within the air or drowning within the river, a likelier occasion contemplating that he can’t swim. (Keller argues that drowning might be a extra peaceable dying, particularly if somebody’s already on fireplace.) Carter sees Fortier’s presence as an opportunity to additional his model within the lead-up to the leap whereas Fortier has doubts about his topic’s skill to drag off such a suicidal mission. These doubts are shared by Wilkins and his workforce, notably when Carter wastes a complete day seemingly stalling out of hysteria, and so they look to Carter’s Québécois protégé Danny Lafortune (Marc Beaupré) as a possible substitute. (Lafortune’s counterpart in “The Devil at Your Heels” is an American stuntman named…Kenny Powers.)

“The Stunt Driver” mines humor from the ridiculous logistical particulars of Carter’s leap, similar to an 100-foot ramp that by no means will get paved easily or a automobile so probably explosive that it may burst into flames at any second. But the movie will get probably the most comedic mileage from Baruchel’s efficiency, particularly when the actor emphasizes sure regional tics, like continually saying “sir,” or when he’s coarsely ranting concerning the inferiority of his rival Evel Knievel, performed by Ben Foster, who amusingly offers the American entertainer a Canadian accent to make it look like the 2 males are provincial enemies.

Baruchel clearly enjoys accentuating Carter’s ridiculous swagger however he’s additionally well-equipped to convey the underlying disappointment of a person so determined to be favored and remembered that he would moderately threat his life than ever be perceived as a coward. Melancholy trickles from the Canadian actor’s eyes, which impressively betrays his character’s assured disposition and divulges a longstanding emotional wound.

A chronicler of the masculine situation, Dowse mines probably the most tenderness not from Carter’s relationship with Gloria, a skinny character whom Leboeuf valiantly tries to instill with real character, however with Keller, the one voice of purpose in his circle. Though he initially views Carter as a foolhardy clown, Keller softens his perspective after testing his resolve throughout a dry run with the rocket automobile on a degree floor the place he intentionally lies to the stuntman about how briskly it can run. When the veteran engineer sees how shaken up his shopper is after exiting a automobile going 250mph journey, Keller turns into a pillar of help for Carter whereas additionally making an attempt to persuade him he doesn’t even have to leap. The movie’s finest dramatic scenes characteristic Helms making an attempt to interrupt via his good friend’s blinders so he can perceive the folks in his life choose him alive than useless.

Anyone can uncover whether or not Carter truly jumped the Saint Lawrence by both watching “The Devil at Your Heels” or trying up its Wikipedia web page. Regardless, Dowse has enjoyable illustrating (and barely embellishing) the precise occasions, that are equal components absurd and heartbreaking. Where the director departs from the supply textual content is in briefly depicting Carter’s last years after the stunt, offering him with a becoming send-off with out evading the tragic particulars of his finish. In his documentary, Fortier doesn’t shrink back from highlighting Carter’s eccentric sensibility and his flamboyant rhetoric, however he doesn’t deal with the person like a joke. (Most of the comedy in “The Devil at Your Heels” comes from Pinsent’s wry voiceover.) Dowse follows Fortier’s lead by poking gentle enjoyable at Carter’s braggadocio whereas basically respecting him as a dreamer who wouldn’t give up. By introducing Carter and his exploits to a brand new technology, “The Stunt Driver” strives to meet his want to reside without end by embodying his private modus operandi: “If life is boring, risk it!”

Grade: B

“The Stunt Driver” premiered on the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. The Independent Film Company will launch it in theaters on Friday, September 25.