Stunt Rock
When you hear of a title like “Stunt Rock,” you kind of have to check it out. What does it mean? What is the story that goes with such a title? Even when they talked about it on ’80s All Over, it’s one of those movies you just feel like you need to experience for yourself.
One look at the career of director Brian Trenchard-Smith, and you get the sense that he didn’t have much he wanted to express on film. Such filmmakers are not bad; they just occupy a different place in film history than others. With “Stunt Rock,” his guiding purpose is to showcase stuntman Grant Page. The story he puts around him is razor thin, but the energy with which it plays out is so crazy, you cannot help but enjoy it.
We begin at an ocean-side cliff formation, where Page is being documented performing a stunt. He is the subject of a documentary before heading to Hollywood to work on a TV series. The documentary format doesn’t really leave the film, however; this feels very much like a slice-of-life in Page’s life, where we see him interviewed by an American reporter (Margaret Gerard), working day to day on an adventure show starring Monique van de Ven, and helping a rock band called Sorcery with their on-stage act.
I wonder if Christopher Guest, et al, watched this film during its American release and came up with the idea of “This is Spinal Tap.” Though not nearly as goofy as that classic, “Stunt Rock” definitely feels in the same vein. Trenchard-Smith showcasing Page here is cool- we get to see the Australian stuntman (who worked on the “Mad Max” films, among others) at work- even if the narrative is patently silly. The scenes with Sorcery, in particular, are like right out of “Spinal Tap,” and I’m curious how Page got involved with them. (I know the movie mentions it, but it still feels improbable.) “Stunt Rock” ends with pyrotechnics, and a conclusion to the story that feels too melodramatic to be real. It is, though, and it’s one of those things that makes this film a weird, delightful piece of cinematic cheese.
