Canada's Knievel gets his due in the warmhearted comedy The Stunt Driver

Like Goon, Dowse and Baruchel’s 2011 hockey comedy, The Stunt Driver has a cheeky sense of humor about sports culture and Canadian manhood. Like a Canadian Ricky Bobby, Carter is unapologetically proud of his country and painfully earnest in his intention to win, even when the odds are against him and he doesn’t quite understand what’s going on around him. Despite his occasional blockheaded statement, there’s an innocence to him that moves those who care about him to try and protect him from his own harebrained ideas. And like in Goon, Dowse finds a sensitive side to the tough-guy act, becoming just as invested in these jocks’ camaraderie. This is especially evident in the way that the once-reluctant Keller becomes like an older brother to Carter, trying his best to make this overly dangerous attempt to jump into another country as safe as humanly possible. Despite all Carter’s mythology-building bluster in interviews, he needs his team or the stunt would never happen in the first place. 

Dowse takes much of The Stunt Driver from real life, but puts his own humorous and sometimes sentimental spin on events, both silly and tragic. He weaves in actual footage of Carter’s exploits from Robert Fortier’s 1981 documentary The Devil At Your Heels, which immerses the movie in the days of gritty feats of nerves and auto parts. In The Stunt Driver, Fortier (Joe Cobden) plays a similarly pivotal role in Carter’s many botched attempts to make the impossible jump, both recording the events and checking in emotionally on Carter in a way few others knew how to do. Swinging between shameless confidence with more than a touch of narcissism and overcompensating to mask his fear, Baruchel takes a heartfelt approach to playing Carter, going beyond the one-note strong-man act to really understand why a man would regularly risk life and limb on a regular basis. To that end, Carter’s frenemy Knievel (Ben Foster) is just as hot-tempered and childish despite being a similarly grizzled veteran of their niche. Both men wonder how many more years of defying death they have left. 

The Stunt Driver plays the familiar notes of sports comedies with a touch of absurdity, which suits the larger-than-life ego of a stunt man who hated being called a daredevil. He took jumping cars dead seriously, to the point of pain and many, many injuries. The straightforward comedy rides smoothly and with a surprising soft side, even if sometimes the momentum threatens to stall out. But it’s Baruchel’s surprising performance that sells the misfit macho act, embodying the fear and adrenaline found when the stunt of your dreams might be your last.

Director: Michael Dowse
Writer: Michael Dowse
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Laurence Leboeuf, Ed Helms, Ben Foster, Marc Beaupré, Dan Bakkedahl, Joe Cobden
Release Date: September 25, 2026