Stuntmen (2009) - By Duane L. Martin

Film Reviews: Stuntmen (2009) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 @ 00:15:34 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

Making a mockumentary is kind of like walking on the edge of a cliff while blindfolded. You could either come out of it just fine, or fall of the cliff and die. I've seen some that were great, some that died horrible deaths, and some that fell off but managed to hang on to the edge. Honestly, I didn't really know what to expect with this one when I had it sent to me, but I have to say, overall I was very pleasantly surprised.

Stuntmen is the story of two rival stuntmen, Eligh Supreme (Marc Blucas) and Tank (Ross Patterson) who are both up for the stuntman of the year award. They used to be friends, but just as Eligh was about to marry fellow stuntwoman and diagnosed nymphomaniac Mindy Danger (Dominique Swain), Tank showed up at the wedding and stole her from him. Tank doesn't really give a squat since he's utterly narcissistic, but Eligh was deeply hurt by the whole thing. Now, with both of them up for the award, a film maker has been hired by the association to shoot some behind the scenes footage of each man for use at the awards show, but he smells a deeper story, and proceeds to turn his little behind the scenes project into a full on documentary, determined to get the full story on the rivaly between the two men. The things he uncovers however, are far from what he expected. For example, Eligh seems to be a latent homosexual that has a special relationship with his personal assistant Steve and close friendship with fellow stuntwoman Karla Bravo (Carly Pope) all lead us to believe he's a homosexual...but is he?

Tank on the other hand is far more straight forward. He's a total dick and doesn't really care if he hurts or offends anyone. He'd need a whole entourage to help him carry around his ego. While Eligh is very likeable, this guy is the total opposite. He's one of those people you wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.

Both men play their roles extremely well, and the rest of the cast is equally as brilliant. Everyone really took a hold of their characters and brought them to life, making them believable despite the silly relationships and situations they were involved with.

This film had several actors in it that were more famous than others, but one I want to mention in particular that I was surprised to see was Lin Shaye, who played Bumble Jackson in this film. She was Jam's religious psycho mom in one of my all time favorite films, Detroit Rock City, and she's really a very talented actress. She was only a side character in this film, but it was great to see her again. What really surprised me was how many films she's actually been in. She's racked up an impression 121 film and television appearances so far in her career, with another twelve films either released, completed or in post-production already for 2009. I haven't seen much of her work sadly, but I do know she's good at playing intense roles, so I might just have to check some of them out sometime soon.

Full of fun, laughs and surprises, Stuntmen really scores as one of the better mockumentaries out there. The DVD release apparently has a street date of August 18, 2009. Keep an eye out for it when it does come out, because it's a lot of fun and definitely worth adding to your collection.