Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Micitype Pretty Good

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Phil Hubbs At a certain point, many of these Burt Reynolds movies tend to blur into one. The constant use of Pontiac Firebird Trans Am's and the fact he's actually wearing another Firebird jacket (silver this time), just like in 'Smokey 2'. Yeah I get the fact the Firebird was a top American muscle car back then but with Reynolds behind the wheel, you could be watching any number of movies!The plot revolves around Reynolds as the titular Hooper, supposedly the greatest Hollywood stuntman alive. Alas old Hooper is getting old, too many crashes and too many painkillers are taking their toll on Hooper. His girlfriend (played by real time girlfriend Sally Field, probably why she's in the movie) is also fed up with Hooper's dangerous career and wants him to quit. Then along comes a much younger, fitter stuntman (Jan-Michael Vincent) who kinda challenges Hooper's position, naturally a friendly yet intense rivalry grows between them as they try to out perform each other. This eventually culminates in the chance to pull off the greatest stunt ever on the movie they are working on. Its extremely dangerous but the pay is huge, thing is, no one thinks they can do it. Hooper's bird doesn't want him to, the doc doesn't want him to, but the movies director is demanding they do it. Is it worth risking their lives for?This movie is directed by none other than Hal Needham, a good friend of Reynolds (if you couldn't tell). The story is actually loosely based around Needham's early career as a stuntman in Hollywood. 'Hollywood's greatest stuntman'? that's the films tagline on the poster, so did Needham kinda have a rather overinflated opinion of himself? or was he really that good?So if we're really honest here, the movie is just an excuse for lots and lots of stunts utilising many stuntmen in the biz. It is a comedy in case you were wondering, its not a heavy drama or anything. Its your usual slapstick affair with Reynolds doing what he does best...drive Trans Am's (did he have a sponsorship deal or something?). As you can imagine the tomfoolery on display in this movie is predictable and hokey. Pretty much every basic stunt you can think of is thrown on the screen, by real stuntmen, not Burt, although he does do the odd bit and was quite athletic back then. You got guys being thrown through windows, bar fights, horse riding, falling off horses, swinging from buildings, falling from heights, flipping cars, jumping cars, explosions, toppling buildings etc...The grand finale is a whopping sequence featuring Hooper and Ski's car trying to escape a small town set whilst it crumbles down around it. The guys must navigate a gauntlet of destruction evading explosions, falling buildings, other cars, people running around etc...and make it to a bridge which ultimately collapses. There they both attempt the huge dangerous stunt of jumping the car over the collapsed bridge (335 feet). This sequence is worth the wait as it shows many solid stunts, nothing that will blow you away these days mind you, but still dangerous well timed stunts. The best being a huge factory chimney falling down with the car just racing past underneath before it hits the ground. The actual final big leap does look good for the most part but it cuts before we see it reach the other side, so I have no idea if that stunt was actually completely successfully.The movie is ultimately about the camaraderie between Hooper and his band of stunt mates (Reynolds realtime coworkers). Its uplifting and cute for sure, but hammy as hell, as is Reynolds ladies man image which is always a part of his characters and kinda cringeworthy. Never really sure if he is just playing that image up or he genuinely thinks he's a charmer. Reynolds also manages to break the forth wall here yet again, as he has done on many of his car comedy movies.Its like a massive overlong episode of 'The Dukes of Hazzard' (James Best is here after all), or just more hijinks from The Bandit. Or, more accurately, a movie about how Hal Needham and co go about making their proper stunt filled extravaganzas, almost like a sly behind the scenes. However you look at it, it is a fun ride at times, Reynolds is clearly having a blast with his car obsessed team of Hollywood regulars, but that doesn't disguise the fact it is completely unoriginal. Yes the tale of a stuntman based on a real person is relatively fresh, but what we actually see is just more of what Reynolds has done before, with the same people (in the same cars!). Oh and the movies title/wording on the poster looks like an actual beer companies logo.6/10

viewsonfilm.com Screen legend Burt Reynolds stars as Sonny Hooper in this goofy, harmless 4am cable flick about the trials and tribulations of the world's greatest movie stuntman. Along with Burton (I like to call him that), the other members of the cast have a lot of fun with what appears to be a great deal of improvisation. Watching this movie you almost get the feeling that during some scenes, I don't think the actors knew that the camera was even rolling. But seriously though, it's okay. When you got Sally Field as Gwen, Sonny's loyal and loving girlfriend who stands by him no matter how dangerous the stunts, current Hollywood burnout Jan Michael Vincent as "Ski," the young and upcoming rookie to the stuntman world who looks to take Sonny's job (not intentionally though), funnyman Robert Klein as the director of the film that Hooper is based upon (it's a movie within a movie of course), and James Best (Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from the TV show Dukes of Hazzard) as Sonny's assistant and friend, the result is a nifty collection of acting misfits. I'm sure after the shooting of Hooper concluded; everybody who worked on this obvious tinsel town nugget probably became best friends. But heck, that's probably the case with any Reynolds's film. In the end, what you get from Hooper is uninhibited tongue and cheek humor overload mixed with an exciting, sped up, documentary feel. The whole flick concludes with a rocket car rambling through tons of explosions (Reynolds and Vincent are driving) and city wide destruction all for a perfect scene in the movie within a movie. Oh did I mention the big Trans Am (same car) jumping across a 300 foot gorge to get to safety. Oh Hollywood, you never disappoint.

Prismark10 This is an easy going, light hearted comedy drama which Burt Reynolds effortlessly churned out in the 1970s. Nothing much to tax your brain and plenty of stunts to keep his fans happy. The film is loosely based on the experiences of director Hal Needham who used to be a stuntman himself and serves as a tribute to stunt-men everywhere.Reynolds is a veteran Hollywood stuntman who works hard and plays harder but is spurred on to do better when a rival emerges (Jan Michael Vincent) who is fitter, takes better care of himself and younger. The two become friends after a bar brawl but begin an escalating but friendly rivalry with the stunts becoming more and more spectacular and dangerous that climaxes in a rocket car stunt.Sally Field pops up as Reynold's girlfriend. There is a roster of stolid supporting actors from Adam West, Brian Keith, John Marley, Robert Klein.The film is easy going, charming and fun. The stunts keep the action moving. There is good chemistry between Vincent and Reynolds but its also easily forgettable like a lot of Reynold's output from that era.

A_Minor_Blip This movie could have been better if there wasn't so much goofing off. I don't mean that goofing off is bad, but one gets the feeling watching this film that 'Hooper' isn't really a character study, i.e. that Reynolds isn't really playing a character, but that he's simply being himself and having fun on the set while the cameras happen to be rolling. This distracts from the intensity of the film's core, about a aging guy who is doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world - a Hollywood stuntman - trying to compete with a hotshot newcomer played by Jan Michael Vincent, who is very cool in this movie. Vincent is realistic and mellow and the connection between his character 'Ski' and Burt's 'Hooper' is far better than the cornball routines between Reynolds and his pal played by James Best (from 'Dukes of Hazard' fame). Best is just another Dom Deluise, or Jim Nabors, or whichever goofy Burt sidekick you can recall. And it's kind of sad because Best is an acting teacher guru and could have done a lot better. When Reynolds and Best do Roy Rogers and Jimmy Stewart impressions I felt like shooting my television set. There is, of course, a bar fight (not many seventies Reynold's films lacked one) and the dialog before and after the fight is as corny and lame as you can get. The jokes between Brain Keith and Reynolds (who plays the older stuntman who Reynolds replaced as the kingpin as now Vincent threatens Reynolds) are lame but not as bad as Reynolds and Best's joking around. I don't know, I just would have liked less "Hey we're having so much fun on the set" and more of an intense character study, which does, in between the jests, shine through on occasion. Robert Klein plays a lofty Hollywood director, and isn't too bad as an actor in this, but he's made into a villain (along with a kiss-up production assistant) and that's kind of lame because in real life, it's not so black and white. I don't like it when a character is made to be instantly unlikeable because he goes against the wishes of the main character, it's just so made-for-TV or something.