Final Rating: 3.5/5
Truth is stranger than fiction, and wild characters aren’t always a creation of the movies. They’re out there in real life; you just have to be there to point a camera at them.
Ken Carter, the pseudonym of Canadian stunt driver Kenneth Gordon Polsjek, was one of these characters, and pointing a camera at him is exactly what director Bob Fortier did to make The Devil At Your Heels. This 1981 National Film Board documentary follows Carter as he and his team prepare to do what they feel is the ultimate car stunt: jump a rocket car off a 90-foot-tall ramp over a mile across the St. Lawrence Seaway.
This ludicrous story is adapted for The Stunt Driver, a historical comedy from writer-director Michael Dowse who has found previous success in other low-budget Canadian comedies like 2011’s Goon and both FUBAR mockumentaries. It stars Jay Baruchel in the role of Ken Carter, Ed Helms as renowned high-speed car designer Dick Keller, Marc Beaupre as Carter’s understudy Danny Lafortune, and Ben Foster in the cameo role of Evel Knievel.
Dowse made some smart directorial decisions from the starting line that make The Stunt Driver a success. First, and most importantly, he was able to get the rights to use a great deal of the footage from the original documentary. In the shots with the film’s cast replacing the real people, the scenes were recreated and shot on the same kind of handheld 16mm camera that Fortier’s documentary crew used.
He then added Bob Fortier and his crew as actual characters in the story, filming Ken Carter on his journey towards this crazed stunt jump. It’s done quite effectively to the point that, if you are unfamiliar with the original, it may not be immediately apparent which footage is which.
Jay Baruchel is vital to this film’s success as he finds a lot of humanity, heart, and fragility behind Carter’s outward bravado. You could certainly infer a lot of this from Carter’s public persona, but Baruchel’s portrayal never mocks the man.
To no surprise, he is also often hilarious. He knows when to be funny and when to let the funny situations play out, such as when Carter reveals that he doesn’t actually have a driver’s license or when (in mid-planning to jump one of the largest seaways in the country) he speaks of how afraid of water and swimming he is.
The supporting cast around Baruchel is also given some great moments to shine. Helms dials back the absurdity to play more of the sensible yin to Ken Carter’s yang, and Laurence Laboeuf keeps chaos and emotions grounded as Carter’s girlfriend Gloria. If there is a stand-out supporting scene stealer, it’s Beaupre as the completely overeager young Quebecois driver that shadows Ken every step of the way.
The Stunt Driver doesn’t quite perfectly lock into place for its entire runtime, with a few moments feeling out of place and the final third of the film seeming a bit crunched for time. A recurring flashback involving a hypnosis session and a hand scar does get hinted at a few more times than is needed and perhaps may have been better suited to be fully shown in the opening of the film.
However, this is the kind of comedic character study that can survive a few flaws. It still has the ability to engage, especially with the archival car moments which are still quite astonishing to witness, and have you rooting for a lovable underdog story.
The Stunt Driver was seen during the 2026 Calgary International Film Festival.
