Stunts

Stunts (1977)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Mark L. Lester

Starring: Robert Forster, Fiona Lewis, Richard Lynch, Joanna Cassidy, Bruce Glover

From: New Line Cinema (back when they were a real low-budget joint)

Here is something I only watched because of someone who does a bad movie podcast who mentioned during the livestream of the latest episode that he saw this movie on YouTube (I believe it's public domain) and yet he hasn't watched it because he's afraid it'll be bad. I did not say that I was going to volunteer but I decided to do so anyhow. As I have met this dude in person a few times I figured I should oblige him and I viewed this tonight.

To take the plot from the IMDb: “After a stunt man dies while he is involved in the making of a motion picture, his brother takes his place in order to find out what really happened.” Needless to say, sabotage is involved.

This movie is directed by Mark L. Lester, who I understand has directed a lot of crap but he was responsible for a pair of great movies, Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo. This was obviously early in his career and unfortunately, it's no Stunt Rock, the wacky Australian movie involving stunts and a wacky rock band known as Sorcery. Besides there being no rock band (although there is a mellow late 70's soft rock soundtrack), the stunts aren't as great and there seems to be plenty of downtime between the stunts or the investigation the brother (Forster) does; in fact you don't see him do much sleuthing at all. I am not saying that the movie is bad; it's just average and not as awesome as Stunt Rock, although it does end in a cool way.

At least there are wacky moments, such as the movie starting off with the soon to die stuntman waking up from a good night's sleep (you get to see him in colored briefs, which I could have done without), getting on his bike that is in the living room, and riding right out the front door... or someone saying that they should be a stuntman because they can crush a beer can with their nose and eat glass, or someone randomly painting a naked lady mural on his truck... and later on you see that that someone owns the truck and he has a waterbed in the back of the truck!

Oh, and like in Stunt Rock there's a female reporter around who is doing a story about stuntmen in general; the one here has the initials of BJ and of course the expected joke is made to a horny guy in the crew and he giggles excitedly; yes, there's some late 70's sexism here.

Like I said, this is average so it's not a must-see but at least it's not awful so if you want to see some 70's character actors in action, there certainly are worse ways to go. I'll be back tomorrow night.