REEL | Jay Baruchel Jumps 'The Stunt Driver' x TIFF 2026

"I'd rather be alive than macho and dead."

Independent Film Company / Mongrel Media

Canada's very own Jay Baruchel and writer/director Michael Dowse dramatize The Stunt Driver, based on the 1981 NFB documentary The Devil at Your Heels—its filming depicted within the film—about the life of daring Montreal-born stuntman and daredevil Ken Carter (aka "The Mad Canadian"), who famously tried to jump the St. Lawrence Seaway over a ninety-foot ramp in a rocket car. The film follows Carter as he sets out to top his rival, Evel Knievel (Ben Foster), and complete the greatest jump of all time that he was never able to.

Co-starring Ed Helms, Laurence Leboeuf, and Dan Bakkedahl, the historical comedy aims to comically replicate the retro look and feel of classic sports documentaries. The Stunt Driver's production sounds and resembles its 1970s setting, with subtle overtones of period style and filming techniques. It's a rather low-key take on the material despite Baruchel's Carter frequently making comically boisterous claims to the contrary.

Baruchel's committed performance and Dowse's stark direction frame the dangerous stunt as the culmination of a life of reckless abandon into a single act and moment. It's an amusing way to stage a biographical comedy about a lesser-known Canadian figure in the shadow of his flashier American colleague. Like Carter himself, the film spends much of its runtime trying to prove itself as a story worth telling to the public. However, like its real-life culmination, there's a series of anti-climactic but sad resolutions that make audiences feel defeated.

The Stunt Driver premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations program.


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