"Richard Rush's 1980 comedy was always one of the most distinctive items in Peter O'Toole's filmography, a witty performance as an autocratic movie director that earned him one of his many (unconverted) Oscar nominations. After 46 years, The Stunt Man looks in some ways like a B-side to Lawrence of Arabia, about a possibly, definitely crazy person whose innate gift for leadership is going to endanger the troops much more than himself."
"It's a high-concept satire of what, exactly? Of the movie business with all its hubris and conceit? Yes, it's perhaps also an anti-war satire although it's more a satire of cinema's inability to be anti-war when the movies have a vested interest in making war look exciting. But the black comedy and the raucousness are interleaved with weird, fierce stabs of extended seriousness and even anguish."
"O'Toole plays Eli, the imperious director in charge of a spectacular first world war action drama with exploding planes and the like, megalomaniacally swooping around in his helicopter and sometimes perched on the camera crane from which he will descend, godlike, to issue orders and vinegary putdowns. He is over budget, over schedule and overstretched; reckless, irresponsible, cutting corners on safety."
Peter O'Toole portrays Eli, an autocratic, megalomaniacal film director staging a spectacular First World War action drama filled with exploding planes and dangerous stunts. The director's reckless cost-cutting and godlike behavior endanger crew and blur moral lines. After a stunt man's death, a desperate Vietnam vet named Cameron assumes the dead man's identity and becomes the film's new stuntman, making him complicit in the director's schemes. Cameron's growing romance with leading lady Nina complicates loyalties, revealing emotional entanglements between director, actors, and crew. The film satirizes the movie industry's hubris and its capacity to glamorize war, mixing black comedy with moments of intense seriousness and anguish.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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