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The Stunt Man
A dazzling performance from the late Peter O'Toole is at the center of a richly entertaining action comedy called from 1980 called The Stunt Man which blends a clever look at Hollywood behind the scenes with a convoluted romantic triangle to maximum effect.
Cameron is a former Vietnam vet who is now a fugitive from the law who unknowingly runs into the middle of a movie set for a WWI epic and causes an accident that actually kills the stunt man operating a vehicle. The brilliant egomaniac directing the film, Eli Cross, witnesses the entire thing and in order to save the film and cover his own ass, Eli blackmails Cameron into replacing the dead stunt man and pretending to be him. Things get complicated when Cameron falls in love with Nina, the film's leading lady, who still is very much involved with Eli, even though she's in deep denial about it.
Director and co-screenwriter Richard Rush created his masterpiece here. an intoxicating blend of show business and romance, rich with enough complexities to give the story its own air of originality. Watching Cameron getting a second chance on life is a lot of fun, but it becomes so much more interesting when he gets involved with Nina because the triangle that develops here is painted in serious shades of gray. Cameron's hero worship of Cross begins to look like something else once he learns that Cross and Nina have a past...that something else might be jealousy. The other fascinating aspect of this story is this director Eli Cross,,,this guy has a serious God complex and casts a spell on everyone in his orbit. It was funny the way everybody working on this film felt that this one of a kind relationship with the guy that no one else did.
I loved this movie because it revealed the arduous, detailed, tedious and never-ending work involved in making a movie. A lot of the professional secrets about stunt work, makeup, and other areas of production are presented without filter here, but it didn't at all destroy the magic movie-making either, it just enhanced it.
Can't make a movie about making a movie without first rate production values and Rush and company deliver, with special nods to cinematography, editing., the quirky musical score. and, of course. the stunt work. As always, Peter O'Toole commands the screen in a charismatic star turn as Eli Cross that earned him his sixth Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Steve Railsback (so memorable as Charles Manson in the CBS minis mom okeries Helter Skelter) is kinetic and intense as the severely damaged Cameron and Barbara Hershey brings a richness to Nina that we don't see coming. A delicious valentine to Hollywood featuring a heart stopping climax that had me on the edge of my chair.
A dazzling performance from the late Peter O'Toole is at the center of a richly entertaining action comedy called from 1980 called The Stunt Man which blends a clever look at Hollywood behind the scenes with a convoluted romantic triangle to maximum effect.
Cameron is a former Vietnam vet who is now a fugitive from the law who unknowingly runs into the middle of a movie set for a WWI epic and causes an accident that actually kills the stunt man operating a vehicle. The brilliant egomaniac directing the film, Eli Cross, witnesses the entire thing and in order to save the film and cover his own ass, Eli blackmails Cameron into replacing the dead stunt man and pretending to be him. Things get complicated when Cameron falls in love with Nina, the film's leading lady, who still is very much involved with Eli, even though she's in deep denial about it.
Director and co-screenwriter Richard Rush created his masterpiece here. an intoxicating blend of show business and romance, rich with enough complexities to give the story its own air of originality. Watching Cameron getting a second chance on life is a lot of fun, but it becomes so much more interesting when he gets involved with Nina because the triangle that develops here is painted in serious shades of gray. Cameron's hero worship of Cross begins to look like something else once he learns that Cross and Nina have a past...that something else might be jealousy. The other fascinating aspect of this story is this director Eli Cross,,,this guy has a serious God complex and casts a spell on everyone in his orbit. It was funny the way everybody working on this film felt that this one of a kind relationship with the guy that no one else did.
I loved this movie because it revealed the arduous, detailed, tedious and never-ending work involved in making a movie. A lot of the professional secrets about stunt work, makeup, and other areas of production are presented without filter here, but it didn't at all destroy the magic movie-making either, it just enhanced it.
Can't make a movie about making a movie without first rate production values and Rush and company deliver, with special nods to cinematography, editing., the quirky musical score. and, of course. the stunt work. As always, Peter O'Toole commands the screen in a charismatic star turn as Eli Cross that earned him his sixth Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Steve Railsback (so memorable as Charles Manson in the CBS minis mom okeries Helter Skelter) is kinetic and intense as the severely damaged Cameron and Barbara Hershey brings a richness to Nina that we don't see coming. A delicious valentine to Hollywood featuring a heart stopping climax that had me on the edge of my chair.