‘The Stunt Driver’: Jay Baruchel Plays a Canadian Evel Knievel

Turning to the 1981 documentary The Devil at Your Heels as its inspirational jump-off point, Michael Dowse’s The Stunt Driver tracks the trials and tribulations of Canadian daredevil Ken Carter in his tireless bid to make a mile-long jump across the St. Lawrence River in a rocket car. With a pitch-perfect Jay Baruchel firmly in the driver’s seat and Ed Helms and Ben Foster (as Carter’s nemesis-turned-mentor Evel Knievel) along for the ride, the tragicomedy would certainly sound like a can’t-miss proposition — and yet it somehow manages to do just that.

Those attending the film’s Toronto International Film Festival world premiere were certainly primed for something faster and funnier, and although there was still sufficient subdued, polite laughter throughout to nudge it to the finish line, the movie nevertheless felt like a series of missed opportunities. Those familiar with Carter’s story might help the IFC release generate some initial traction when it hits theaters on Sept. 25, but audiences expecting something looking and sounding like a Canuck Ron Burgundy will likely be left wanting more.

Using that Robert Fortier documentary as its blueprint, the production kicks off in the mid-1970s, when the Montreal-born Carter, formerly Kenneth Gordon Polsjek, embarks on his quest to do for the St. Lawrence Seaway (spanning from Quebec to Lake Erie) what Snake River Canyon did for Knievel’s career. Taking in the latter’s ill-fated launch on a rocket motorcycle, the initially unimpressed Carter turns to his supportive wife, Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf), quipping, “Why is he dressing like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader?”

But it isn’t long before he seeks out his own rocket man — deeply cynical engineer Dick Keller (Ed Helms), who, while contending that it’s mathematically possible for a souped-up canary yellow Lincoln Continental to make the one-mile jump traveling at 280 mph, is dubious that Carter will pull it off in one piece.

With his rag-tag crew in tow — including cranky manager Bill Wilkins (Dan Bakkedahl) and Danny LaFortune (a fictionalized version of American stuntman Kenny Powers), a fellow competitive stunt driver and Ken’s understudy for the big jump — Carter proceeds to oversee the construction of a 1,400-foot take-off ramp in rural Morrisburg, Ontario, and a landing zone in Ogden Island, New York, which would be covered with a 200 square-foot bed of roses. After a series of prolonged setbacks and constant squabbling, Jump Day would actually take place several years later on Oct. 5, 1979, with a Japanese documentary crew on hand to film the run-through.

But when Wilkins and his backers are concerned that Carter isn’t physically and emotionally up to the challenge, they arrange to have LaFortune do the actual jump behind his back, only for the vehicle to start busting apart mid-air, landing him in the hospital with numerous broken vertebrae and fractures.

Incorporating the original documentary footage of the ramp construction and unsuccessful jump seamlessly into the production, Dowse, along with cinematographer Sara Mishara, editor Reginald Harkema and production designer Jean-André Carriere, certainly get the languid ’70s energy and faded patina down pat. But there’s an awful lot of aimless chatter and repetitive interview sequences that keep getting in the way of the viewer really getting to see what propels the man of the hour, a genuinely affable individual who just wanted to be liked.

Baruchel is admirably in the zone here, adeptly capturing Carter’s Canadian cadence and speech rhythms and, whether or not intentionally, adding a hint of the late, great Norm Macdonald into the equation. Often seen with a cigarette in one hand and clutching a stubby bottle of Molson Export in the other, he comes across as more of a poet philosopher than a grandstanding showman.

Foster is equally terrific as Knievel, whom Carter’s manager has recruited to serve as his technical advisor and mentor. His scenes with Baruchel really spark the film to life, and Foster clearly seems to be enjoying shedding the usual intensity he brings to roles.

Those familiar with either the documentary or Carter’s story will know that his great Canadian dream will end up, quite literally, crashing down on him, but the film’s final images will nevertheless come as a gut punch, especially given that prevailing, laid-back tone. At the end of the day, The Stunt Driver still gets to where it needs to arrive. You’re just left wishing it had been a cleaner trajectory.