Working with material that could, with a few false steps, have turned into a tony reality-and-illusion puzzle, the director, Richard Rush, has kept it all light-headed and funny -- it’s slapstick metaphysics.

| Sep 18, 2023

The Stunt Man is a brilliant feat of cinematic legerdemain, creating an illusory world in which nothing is what it seems.

| Jan 29, 2019

Pretentious, overenergized, muddled, intellectually bogus, and very entertaining for it.

| Mar 13, 2015

The fun lies in the journey. It is a trip of constantly shifting perceptions and sharply etched satirical sketches of movie types. It is also a carnival of bang-up stunt scenes.

| Mar 13, 2015

Sensationally original.

| Jun 11, 2011

O'Toole is excellent in his best, cleanest performance in years.

| Dec 1, 2008

The result is a movie filled with gags and excellent stunts which remains curiously humourless at heart. Stunted, not stunning.

| Feb 9, 2006

A film that depends on deceiving us has got to play by its own rules. If we are going to be deceived in general, fine, but then we can't be cheated on particulars.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 23, 2004

Mr. Rush keeps the film moving busily, sometimes entertainingly, forward. But he seldom offers his audience enough incentive to puzzle through a wild overabundance of riddles.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2004

What's real and what's make-believe remain tantalizingly ambiguous up to the final frame.

| Jan 1, 2000