Adapted from Paul Brodeur's novel, Richard Rush's story of a Machiavellian movie director and his accidental employee takes a darkly comic look at movie reality vs. "real" reality. Running from the law, Vietnam vet Cameron (Steve Railsback) stumbles on a movie shoot just in time to interfere with a staged accident, causing (perhaps) the stunt man's death. Rather than turn Cameron in, director Eli Cross (Oscar nominee Peter O'Toole) makes him an offer he can't refuse: replace the dead stunt man
in return for safe harbor. Despite objections about Cameron's inexperience, Eli keeps him on, figuring that a vet will add an extra charge of realism to the World War I opus that he's filming. As leading lady Nina (Barbara Hershey) returns Cameron's affections, and Eli becomes ever more inscrutably mercurial, Cameron begins to wonder how far Eli will go to get the screen effects he wants, and if he would think twice about killing the stunt man. Placing a Vietnam vet in the midst of movie-making chaos, Rush adds a pointedly contemporary spin to Cameron's confusion; the war experience that makes Cameron a good stunt man wreaks havoc on his life. Rush in turn disorients the audience by seamlessly interweaving scenes from Eli's movie with scenes of its being made. Made two years before Rush found a studio to release it, The Stunt Man opened to raves for its wily narrative and O'Toole's messianic director. Its sly commentary on the blurred boundaries between movies and life became all the more striking at the dawn of the Reagan '80s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
Middle fingers aimed directly at the Establishment - both in tainted Tinseltown and the rest of a pre-Reagan America - are rarely as masterful as this brazen bird flip.
At the 1980 San Francisco Film Festival, François Truffaut was asked to name his favorite director. He replied, 'I don't know his name, but I just saw his picture last night. It's called The Stunt Man.'
Time after time the camera shows us people in precarious situations here only to pull back to reveal that everything just witnessed was an elaborate gag designed to please the director of a film ... even the ins and outs of personal relationships. Are our own lives so controlled? A paranoid drug-fueled delusion,
mindlessly rambling at points, still interesting at points.
An effing masterpiece from beginning to end. There is just no two ways about it. Peter O'Toole was right. "This film wasn't released, it escaped." An amazing piece of cinema and fantastic performances across the board.
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