Double Dare Review by Zombie Boy (4 Stars)

Double Dare Review by Zombie Boy (4 Stars) | MatchFlick

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Movie Details

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Starring:
Lynda Carter, Lucy Lawless, Ken Howard, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Alec Baldwin, Gary Busey, Tsianina Joelson, Ted Raimi, Claire Stansfield, Alexandra Tydings, Woo-ping Yuen, Zoe Bell, Eurlyne Epper, Monica Staggs, Victoria Pratt, Conrad E. Palmisano, Jeannie Epper, Terry Leonard, Terry Frick, Conrad E. Palmisano, Deborah Abbott, Kimberly Amato, Adrienne Wilkinson, Wendy Woody, Ken Lesco

Directed By:
Amanda Micheli

Double Dare (2004)

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Movie Review by Zombie Boy
April 27th, 2007

I've been having writer's block recently, so forgive me if this review sucks.

Anyway, this is a very interesting documentary. It follows roughly a year in the lives of two female stuntwomen, Jeannie Epper and Zoe Bell. The former is an old hand, born into a stuntperson family, with doubling Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman as her claim to fame. The latter is an up and coming Kiwi, trying to beak out of television work and into films.

The film begins right at the end of Bell's tenure as the stunt double for Lucy Lawless in Xena, as she suddenly find herself unemployed at the end of the show's run. She heads off to America to scope out the situation, and spend some time under the wing of Epper.

I hate to be biased, but I pretty much tuned out any portion of Double Dare that did not include Zoe Bell. But luckily, any time she is on screen is magic. She's just such a spitfire. Maybe it's because Epper has an aura of bitterness surrounding her all the time. The camera follows her to a consultation with a plastic surgeon, as well as going inside a meeting of the Stuntwoman's Association of Motion Pictures. The sense you get is that even stuntwomen are made to feel the pressure put upon the actual stars, i.e.: always having to be thinner and prettier than their peers, regardless of talent.

I'm not saying that her dreams of moving up from grunt to Stunt Coordinator have not been realized at least partly due to her gender, and I'm not saying that she does not have a right to be bitter about it, I'm just saying that the film doesn't handle that well. None of those issues are ever addressed in the Zoe Bell segments, so it leaves the whole works feeling a little lopsided (Well, once Epper tells Zoe to lie about her weight, to which Zoe looks at her like she's insane).

In closing, I will say that anyone who is a fan of film should watch this documentary. The theme to The Fall Guy, The Unknown Stuntman, comes to mind. We really don't often take time out to think of the faceless people who make the action in films so exciting, and make it look easy in the process.

PS: This film is also a must for Tarantino completists. It includes nice behind the scenes footage from Kill Bill, and QT is one of the several interviews included in the special features.

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	Zara Apr 27, 2007 6:34 PM also wrote a review of Double Dare
It's in the queue. I was hoping it would be a "watch it now" but alas.... Oh, and in the "watch it now" catalog there is a movie called PUSS IN BOOTS where Christopher Walken is Puss. I had to shut it off after 20 minutes (something that I would normally never do. I'll struggle through just about anything) because it was just so f*cking disturbing to me.

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