The Stunt Driver

ActionComedyDrama

In cinemas 1w later · Theatrical Sep 25, 2026 (CA)

★ Shortlisted by MarcLevyTO

Programme: Special Presentations
Year: 2026
Runtime: 99 min
Country: Canada
Language: English
Premiere: World Premiere
In cinemas: Sep 25, 2026 (CA)

Based on the true story of Montrealer Ken Carter, the “Mad Canadian” stunt driver who tried to jump the Saint Lawrence River in a rocket car in the mid-’70s. Carter's dream was to end his 30-year career with a big jump, a big paycheck, and mega stardom. In the process of accomplishing it, he hired a big sports manager and enlisted the best in rocket car design, with the National Film Board of Canada filming a documentary leading up to the event.

From the TIFF programme

Jay Baruchel and director Michael Dowse re-team for a raucous yet heartfelt comedy about a Canadian stuntman who dared to dream big and fly (very) high.

Even when compared with his fellow mavericks, misfits, and adrenaline junkies who wowed audiences with their high-speed stunts during the 1970s golden age of daredevils, Ken Carter was one of a kind. Known as “The Mad Canadian” and immortalized in Robert Fortier’s 1981 NFB documentary The Devil At Your Heels — a film whose creation is very much woven into this successor’s gonzo tapestry — Carter repeatedly risked his life for a series of car stunts that culminated in the most ambitious project of all: a historic jump in a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental across a mile-wide expanse of the St. Lawrence River. What could go wrong? In short: everything.

Powered by Jay Baruchel’s all-out performance as the man behind the wheel, Michael Dowse’s endearingly scrappy comedy honours its inspiration by portraying all the steps and missteps over the course of Carter’s years-long quest. The fact that The Stunt Driver frequently matches the anarchic energy of Baruchel and Dowse’s previous teaming on Goon (TIFF ’11) is no surprise. What’s more unexpected is the poignancy that the actor brings to his take on a man whose displays of bravado conceal a welter of fears and insecurities. It’s easy to see why he relies on steadfast allies like his wife Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf) and his car designer and technician Dick Keller (Ed Helms) — and why he’s so easily undermined by the machinations of his American nemesis, the legendary Evel Knievel (Ben Foster).

All this makes for a thoroughly mad and Canadian mostly-true-life tale that will reintroduce a new generation of viewers to Carter’s wild story and his reckless determination to tell the laws of gravity to shove it.

JASON ANDERSON

Content advisory: coarse language, drug use, sexual content (innuendo, language), violence