Double Dare

The storyline of the two stunt women in Double Dare was compelling and fun. It was well paced: up, down, sideways and all with outrageous stunts going on as a side dish. The main course here is seeing two people trying to break in, and stay in this brutal business.

I saw this film when it appeared in Chicago and found it entertaining, amusing, and totally real. These are real women, and the courage and talent of these women who perform potentially dangerous stunts is awe inspiring. This movie truly captures the athleticism and skill required to work as a stunt woman. Jean Epper and Zoe Bell are excellent subjects as one is enthusiastically entering the tough world of Hollywood stunt women as the other, a veteran, teaches her the "tricks of the trade". The audience was also taken by the story and its highly entertaining subject. I will never view an action flick again without thinking of these tremendously talented women who fearlessly make an action film what it is. Wonderwomanly wonderful.

Double Dare is an excellent funky cool inspiring documentary! It features two rocking stunt women. One was a pioneer who worked on wonder woman and is now in her sixties and the other is most well know for her several years working on Xena. I just saw Zoe Bell at the 2005 Xena con. She did brilliant work on Xena & was also Uma Thurman's double for Kill Bill! It is also very heart warming to see the support that Lucy Lawless & Quentin have given her! At the Xena Con Lucy found a few fliers for the film leftover on the stage and she threw them out to the audience encouraging everyone to see it. The DVD has just been released & has some highly recommended extras!

In case you didn't already know, Double Dare is a documentary about two Hollywood stuntwomen--the Xena and Wonderwoman who really encounter danger (within five minutes of the film, one of them is lit on fire... on purpose.) I don't know what it was about this doc, but it really hit home with me. I got the feeling that the filmmaker really wanted to let these stuntwomen tell their story, and you could feel the trust between the subjects and the crew. These women not only aren't afraid to jump of five story buildings, but are fearless in their fight against the sexism that is evidently still rampant in the film industry. Without Hollywood romanitcization or cheesy glorification (or a big budget it seems), Double Dare brilliantly tells the stories of these captivating stunt women.

DOUBLE DARE chronicles the ultimately intersecting lives of two stunt women, a graceful, aging veteran and an ingénue-like up and comer. Somehow, in a reasonable chunk of time, the filmmaker tackles the unveiling of two distinct personalities and histories. She then recontextualizes them within the two distinct eras that produced them.

The older one faced challenges as a woman in a male dominated field that the younger one will probably never encounter. Yet neither the characters nor the filmmaker take the "Look at the injustice" route on this issue. The piece ends up being a solid character study with the gender politics circling cheerfully on the perimeter. The characters are aggressively likeable, and the filmmaker reveals a world that audiences rarely if ever get to see. Documentary is 90% editing, and lucky for us, because the editing is phenomenal. I can't wait to see what this filmmaker chooses to tackle next. Excellent work.