The Stunt Man 4K 1980 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Hiding from the police, Cameron ends up on the set of a film about World War I. The cruel director Cross needs someone to replace a stuntman who has been killed. Cameron is given shelter, but he must replace the stuntman. Having survived the horrors of the Vietnam War, Cameron shows incredible courage in his role as an American pilot.

Review 4K Movie

I have loved this film since I first saw it in the early 80s. I watched it again when it was shown on a second channel and recorded it from the TV onto my first VHS recorder. When the DVD era arrived, I ordered the first licensed disc. Now that we are in the “internet age,” I keep track of information about my favorite movie and sometimes make paradoxical discoveries. All five reviews of the movie “The Stunt Man” on this respected resource are positive. But, in my opinion, they deserve a maximum of two stars, which is surprising and makes me want to argue.

When asked whether the director is “mediocre or extraordinary,” I answer that he is extraordinary and that this is his best film. Richard Rush was often the first to explore new themes in American cinema, and those who followed him created films that are more familiar to viewers, such as The Fast and the Furious and Lethal Weapon. Stunt Man could have been the first film about stuntmen. Rush was preparing to shoot the film Air America, but it didn't work out, and he remained only the screenwriter. Richard Rush worked as an independent director and was successful, but while he was trying to launch The Stunt Man for almost 10 years, marketing techniques in the film industry changed. Films became more standardized, squeezed into the framework of certain genres and time formats. ‘The Stunt Man’ could not fit into this mainstream, which affected its box office success in the US.

All arguments about the film's inadequacy without Dominic Fronter's music or Peter O'Toole's acting are nonsense. The film is a complete work, and it is a huge credit to Richard Rush and his team that they wove this tapestry from beautiful threads. An amazing quote from the review: “the author does not so much expose...” — as if Richard Rush had undertaken to do so. The director puts his ideas into the film, but the viewer may be drawn to something else in the film that corresponds to their personal experience and emotional state. And the opinion of a critic is just an opinion and cannot be an indisputable truth. At one of his meetings with viewers, Andrei Tarkovsky asked them not to look for hidden hints in his films (what this means, what that means...). I used to think this was just flirting, but now I agree with him.

In my opinion, a new category should be introduced for three reviews: snobbish. Yes, we have aesthetes, and they feel very comfortable, but they are a minority. It seems that people are not discussing cinema, but entertaining themselves in an anatomical theater. First, the quotes are surprising: “mortal sin,” “godless idea” — why am I forced to read this on a secular internet resource? Second, another batch of quotes: “terrible ideological confusion,” “shock value on screen,” “moral imperative”... It's as if I'm reading this in the year the film was released, not today. Why be the ‘best student’ (according to Schwartz) at the current level of development of society and cinema? The terrible Soviet censorship practically did not cut this film, which means it did not see the horrors that the current reviewers found. For example, in the simple comedy with Pierre Richard, Don't Lose Sight, 28 fragments were cut.

The most successful DVD release of the film came from Neoclassica, and it has the maximum amount of additional material available at the time of release, for which I am especially grateful. However, there is a fly in the ointment: the publishers took the dubbing soundtrack from the internet and, when converting it from 5.1 to 2.0, lost the sound design of some scenes (there is noise, but no music). A Blu-Ray edition was released in the US, which was reissued in Germany and Spain. It has new bonus material, but there is no remastering at all—there are film defects and the color reproduction has a green tint.

It has been rightly noted that the dubbing is beyond praise. But another parallel is interesting: the role of Eli Cross was perfectly dubbed by Anatoly Kuznetsov (our comrade Sukhov). And the negative attitude of film officials and critics is very similar in both The Stuntman and The White Sun of the Desert. Both films were also enthusiastically received by audiences. My three favorite Western films have cult status among viewers, but on IMDB they have ratings of 7.1 to 7. Neither ratings nor the presence of an Oscar are a guarantee of audience love. And ‘The Stuntman’ undoubtedly deserved it. And it's no surprise, as Rush's team put so much energy and love into making this film that viewers couldn't help but feel it. While we see a review rating of 2/3 here, on many other sites the rating is 10/1 or 20/1, which more accurately reflects the film's true place in the hearts of viewers. I would like to express the unanimous opinion of a huge number of fans: THIS IS A FILM FOR THE AGES.