Delayed Reaction: The Stunt Man

Premise: A convict on the run goes into hiding by taking a job as the stunt man for a movie.

 

It's nice to know that in a lot of ways, Hollywood never changes. They just can't help but reward a movie about making a movie. Sure, this kind of thing has led to greater success in the last decade, with the likes of The Artist, Argo, and Birdman all winning Best Picture, but they've always liked to reward movies about show business. The Stunt Man isn't a particularly prestige movie on paper beyond the presence of Peter O'Toole, with its satirical edge and action movie tendencies. Yet, it still managed to get Best Actor, Screenplay, and Director nominations for the Oscars that year. Something tells me if this was a movie about a guy hiding on a construction crew with a morally dubious foreman instead, it wouldn't've got those Oscars nominations.

 

I knew that Peter O'Toole earned the Best Actor nomination for this, so I'll admit that I was disappointed to learn that he wasn't actually the stunt man. Watching the movie though, I realized he would've been too old to actually be a stunt man in it. Then, I realized that O'Toole was only 46 when he made this movie and Tom Cruise is still hanging off planes in Mission: Impossible movies at 58. Seriously, how was O'Toole that old at 46 when Cruise and Brad Pitt are holding it together so well at nearly 60? O'Toole's nomination is one of my favorite Oscar oddities though. He's not actually the lead, but he's so prominent in a supporting role, with enough of an Oscar pedigree that he was bumped up to Lead. Oddly enough, he probably wouldn't've won had he moved down to Supporting though, because Timothy Hutton, the actual lead of Ordinary People, moved down to supporting because he didn't have enough clout: basically, the exact opposite scenario. I don't know how more people aren't fascinated by awards history. Oh well.

 

I liked this movie. It has an entertaining mix of a lot of genres. The stunt sequences are both impressive and fake-looking, which is the exact aesthetic the movie was chasing. O'Toole really is a treat. I'm pretty much indifferent about Steve Railsback in the titular role. I think Hollywood felt the same way based on the rest of his filmography. I don't recall seeing any other movies with Barbara Hershey in them, although I recognize the name. She was good. I see she has exactly one Oscar nomination in her career, and that sounds about right. She's good, not great.

I was a little turned off by the inside movie-making stuff in the movie. It got a little too clever for my taste. Too often, movies about movies act like they are the first ones making jokes or observations about how hollow the industry is. If anything though, the version of movie-making depicting in this movie is a fantasy too. Or, if it wasn't, it would be soon after, with the accident on the set of The Twilight Zone movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend