The black comedy and the raucousness are interleaved with weird, fierce stabs of extended seriousness and even anguish.

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.

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

…The Stunt Man has better action than James Bond, and even a Dusty Springfield theme song that;’s positively Bondian, but tied to a creativem, original narrative that never quite gives up its secrets…a fabulous Inception-style puzzle-box for adults...