Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Stuntman’ on Disney+, A Doc About One Man’s Steam-Powered Daredevil Dream

Stuntman (Disney+) almost burns out the fuse on its subject’s dream, but eventually does find a route back to the rocket that will carry one daring stunt performer in a vault across a canyon. Part proud dream, part leap of faith, it’s a journey that, for better or worse, is imbued with the spirit of 1970’s hustler daredevil Evel Knievel.

STUNTMAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In September 1974, ABC’s Wide World of Sports favorite, school lunchbox adorner and stars ‘n’ stripes jumpsuit enthusiast Evel Knievel attempted one of his most outrageous stunts yet, a rocket-powered leap across the vast Snake River Canyon in southern Idaho. Presented nationwide on a faulty, undersold close-circuit broadcast, the jump was plagued with production and logistic issues from the start, and when Knievel’s X-2 “Skycycle” plunged nose first into the canyon after its parachute deployed too early, the whole thing felt like an omen for the weird vibe of Nixon’s America.

Nevertheless, Knievel endured, and so did one man who his daredevil exploits inspired. Beginning in the early 1980’s, Eddie Braun built a solid career as an in-demand Hollywood stunt performer, eventually working on such blockbusters as Transformers and The Avengers. When we meet him, Braun is preparing to accelerate a roll-caged mockup of a California Highway Patrol police interceptor up to 80MPH, at which point he’ll detonate the bomb in its trunk with him still in it. It’s just another day at the office for the likeable Braun, who also introduces us to his wife, family, and lifelong, slightly harebrained dream: to recreate Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump down to its original specifications, only this time, this stuntman aims to stick the landing.

To do this, Braun teams up with Scott Truax, son of aerospace engineer Robert Truax, the man who designed the original X-2’s steam-powered propulsion system. “It’s been my dream since I was a kid to be able to prove that my dad’s rocket would’ve worked,” Truax says, and his dream becomes aligned with Braun’s dream as their pipe dream project builds momentum. Truax sets to machining the rocket with his father’s original plans, thousands of rivets, aging spare parts, and tools dating from 1974. Braun visits Twin Falls, and encounters locals still pissed about Knievel’s bounced checks and lasting environmental damage. And major TV networks and financial benefactors balk at a partnership, citing interest level and the baked-in danger to life and limb.

Despite the delays and setbacks, launch day arrives, and Stuntman captures Braun as he climbs into the “Evel Spirit” rocket in his NOMEX suit and crash helmet emblazoned with his blood type while his crew of veteran stunt professionals make their final preparations. “Initiator enabled…5…4…3…2…1…”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? There’s a fun run in Stuntman through some of Braun’s career highlights — the precision driver aggressively barrel-rolling and corkscrewing bulky Buicks and Chryslers for 1980s network television productions like The Fall Guy and Dukes of Hazzard, or Charlie Sheen’s famous “See you later!” swan dive off a bridge from the back seat of a moving jeep in Navy SEALs (1990), where it was actually Braun doing the leaping. And all of the talk in Stuntman about the seventies pop culture anomaly that was Evel Knievel can only bring to mind Super Dave Osbourne, that recurring staple of ‘80s late night TV and other comedic appearances (2000’s The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave), who never met a pratfall or jumpsuit to which he didn’t give a hearty thumbs up.

Performance Worth Watching: Stuntman is enlivened considerably by the addition of Bauer’s gang of salty stunt performer peers, guys like Gary Davis and Buddy Joe Hooker. In fact, it’s worth considering what film might have been made out of their adventures alone. “There’s all these political entities in the stunt world,” stunt world vet Conrad Palmisano says. “There’s this stunt group and that stunt group. But when it comes down to that day on the set, when it’s that guy’s day in the barrel, we’re all there for them. And when it’s my day in the barrel, they’re all there for me.” “A Day In the Barrel” would be a doc worth watching.

Memorable Dialogue: The midsection of Stuntman contrasts the trepidation of would-be sponsors and financial backers with the danger-blind determination of a guy who crashes cars for a living. “I’m betting my reputation, my life, entirely, on this rocket,” Braun says. But he gets frustrated while courting the likes of Lucas Oil and Chevrolet Performance at a drag race in Indianapolis. “These guys spend big bucks to put their logos all over these cars that could blow up at any moment, and they think my project is too risky.”

Sex and Skin: No way. This thing is about Gas and Guts.

Our Take: The events leading up to Eddie Braun’s jump begin in 2013, and the launch date itself is September 16, 2016. Thematic bookends — a present-day introduction from Dwayne Johnson; a 2019 coda that finds Braun still strapping himself into stunt vehicles — provide situational context, but there’s still some question as to why Stuntman is only now streaming, when its initial release was on the film festival circuit of more than a few years ago. There’s one big clue, though, and that’s Johnson himself. The actor, whose Seven Bucks Productions stepped in to executive produce Stuntman when various television network partnerships had faltered, lauds the work of Hollywood stunt professionals in his intro, and highlights one big budget action extravaganza in particular: his own Jungle Cruise, which Disney is releasing just a week after Stuntman appears on its Disney+ platform. Synergy! It’s rocket-powered.

Speaking of those failed partnerships, spare part footage from what would’ve been Fox’s “Launch of the Century,” a splashy prime time special attached to the World Series, seem to have been repurposed as padding for Stuntman‘s run time up to launch day. (As for a proposed TNT partnership, it never gets further than a proposal on paper.) There are also moments of narrative driftwood, like when Braun visits Slash in the studio where he and his backing band the Conspirators are recording a cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” something that was apparently offered as a download cookie for contributors to a Kickstarter that would help fund the big jump. Why exactly is this included? Braun’s commitment to the project is admirable, but Stuntman only offers superficial insight into his mindset as a married father of four who pours his life savings into an extremely dangerous stunt that, like this doc itself, often feels constructed from spare parts.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but maybe only for the revealing footage from cameras on board stunt vehicles and steam-powered rockets, because otherwise, Stuntman‘s narrative is thinner than the air above Snake River Canyon.

 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch Stuntman on Disney+