The Stunt Driver

Baruchel gives Carter a beating heart beneath all the bravado, while Dowse turns his seemingly absurd ambition into something genuinely thrilling and moving.

A sweetly oblivious idiot with a huge ego and some talent, the entertaining characterization by Baruchel has undertones (and a bit of the look) of Danny McBride’s downward spiraling Kenny Powers in the baseball comedy series Eastbound and Down.

The Stunt Driver lovingly cannibalizes Fortier’s documentary by following its broad structure and semi-faithfully reenacting many of its classic scenes, like the paunchy Carter struggling to get into his ill-fitting jumpsuit, often with the subjects’ actual words used for dialogue by his ensemble of comic actors.

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.

With its era-appropriate fashions and a color palette that resembles a 1970s movie, “The Stunt Driver” does a good job propelling us back to that decade. But all those wide collars and crunching car metal made me wish this movie had been made by Hal Needham.

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.

Despite all of the film’s narrative and tonal setbacks, there’s something captivating about the center of this film. The generally underrated Baruchel clearly understands Carter, finding a balance of fear, showmanship, and competitiveness that can be hard for actors to capture.