Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

In my limited experience I’m thinking the safest bet for a filmmaker to get over in this business is to make a mockumentary. I’ve seen a few of these mockumentary comedies and I haven’t seen one that sucked total ass yet. Just like I haven’t seen a football movie that has sucked total ass as of yet. There you go filmmakers out there, make a football mockumentary and you have a hanging curve ball with Barry Bonds at the plate. Of course, some football movies are great and some are okay and the same applies to the mockumentary genre with such acknowledged classics as ‘This is Spinal Tap’ leading the way or, if you really want to get a giggle, track down the mockumentary short ‘The Old Negro Space Program’ which is ten minutes of pure genius. ‘Fear of a Black Hat’ and ‘Finishing the Game’ were pretty good and there are those that are all right, such ’18 Fingers of Death’. Today we’re talking about the mockumentary from director Eric Amadio titled ‘Stuntmen’ which started out being pretty damned funny but couldn’t maintain its high level of humor for its entire running time. But it also didn’t suck total ass.

Meet top Hollywood stuntmen Tank Macho (Ross Patterson) and Eligh Supreme (Mark Blucas). The reason that we are concerned with these two masters of the industry because at this point and time some guy named Steve (Chris Tarantino), a smarmy documentarian with a fake ‘foreign’ accent is, chronicling the ‘Stuntman Award Ceremony’ with this years edition being of interest because the testosterone juiced Tank and the effeminate Eligh, once good buddies, are now bitter, bitter rivals and are both up for the coveted award of Stuntman of the Year.

It is complex as to why this is this case between these two stuntmen but the lines are clearly drawn in the sand. Now it’s up to Steve and his beleaguered cameraman (Eric Amadio) to sift thought the likes of Eligh’s ex-wife and stuntwoman Mindy Danger (Dominique Swain) who is now kicking it with Tank, a relationship the began at Eligh and Mindy’s reception. Then there’s Eligh’s salty grandfather and legendary stuntman Leo Supreme (Lance LeGault), who also used to kick it with Mindy, who is keeping all

kinds of secrets from his sexually suspect grandson. But despite the fact the Eligh has an unusual affinity for the color pink, loves a good manicure, cries more than Dick Vermeil and has a live in ‘personal assistant’ with whom he is prone to frequent bouts of Public Display’s of Affection, Eligh does have a considerably toasty girlfriend in Karla Bravo (the considerably toasty Carly Pope). It is Los Angeles so I guess this is to be expected. All of these little dramatic nuances play out amidst a lot of discussions about old dudes with large peckers and anal sex with it all boiling down to who will win Stuntman of the Year.

Pretty much everybody in this movie is funny to some extent, with the possible exception of Chris Tarantino but he was the straight man for the funny stuff so I guess he wasn’t supposed to be all that funny, but even he had his moments. Eric Amadio seemed to be at his comedic best when making gay innuendo chatter, to the extent that the man just might be the best that ever was at creating gay innuendo chatter. Then there was Ray Wise who was very funny as the grizzled host of the award show, a man born without the Sense of Humor gene. Funnier still is that Ray Wise has almost completely redefined himself as a comedic actor by not being funny. That’s Leslie Nielson genius right there.

Other amusing cameos were turned in by Joel Moore, Brandon Routh and Zachary Levi as a trio of prototypical Hollywood agents and Taylor Negron making an appearance as Eligh’s gay father… Taylor Negron playing a funny gay character, that’s a little surprising right there.

Marc Blucas was so good at playing a borderline gay stuntman, if he hadn’t just gotten married to crazy hot accused felon Ryan Haddon… I guess assault is a felony… I would’ve thought that Marc Blucas was gay for real. Ryan Haddon is the kind of woman who will straight up go upside your head if you don’t treat her right Marc so watch yourself. My kind of girl.

The real problem with ‘Stunmen’ is that just isn’t as funny as the movie goes on and actually takes on a narrative as it were. As is typical with movies of this sort with the jokes coming fast, furious and constantly, not all of the jokes are funny, some are actually painful in missing their intended mark, but ‘Stuntmen’ is funny enough for me to qualify as a genuinely funny movie and a worthy addition to the mockumentary genre.