Review: Danger God

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood is, unsurprisingly, a smash hit. Being a Tarantino joint, it’s chock full of movie references and controversial content. Among the references (and controversy) is fictional stuntman Cliff Booth, a facsimile of various stuntmen including Hal Needham and Gary Kent. You probably know Needham as the director of Smokey and the Bandit, but you may not have heard of Kent. Well, this documentary aims to change that.

Directed by journalist Joe O’Connell, Danger God explores just about every nook and cranny of Kent’s life, from his early days falling into the stunt world to his latest ventures. This exhaustive study clocks in at 98 minutes and features a vast array of new and archive footage. Both tend to be of very amateur quality and are rarely anything more than passable. Bizarre editing choices, seemingly made because the editor found a cool new preset in Adobe Premiere, add to the lackluster visuals. Luckily, that’s not as big a gripe as it could be.

What’s fascinating about this documentary is how exactly it matches the quality of Kent’s filmography. Being a mainstay of schlock titan Al Adamson and various ’70s exploitation pictures, Kent was no Hal Needham. He rarely worked on any project your average moviegoer would have seen, let alone heard of. For some, this will give Kent a strong personal appeal, while for others it might result in disinterest. Either way, Kent’s lo-fi repertoire perfectly matches this loving but amateurish ode to his career.

Secondary to this accidental motif, Danger God also explores the fleeting nature of life and the acceptance of death. Gary Kent is currently in his 80s and has gone through multiple heart surgeries. He’s also had several family members die far too soon. Kent’s ruminations on these events and undeterred love of his profession is at once bittersweet and inspiring. The roughshod film making at play supports these emotional beats. It provides them with an authenticity that may have been blunted by a more professional production.

Of course, none of this will matter if you’re a fan of 1982’s The Forest, werewolf bikers, or whacked out hippies played by far-too-old New Hollywood stars. You’ll just want a greater insight into these small, mostly forgotten films from a time when Hollywood was akin to the Wild West. If that’s the case, you’ll be enraptured for the whole of the run time. Not every film gets a deep analysis, but all of the major players and oddballs get some mention.

It was also fun to listen to Kent discuss these movies with such admiration. Having spent untold hours being literally and figuratively beaten down to craft these bizarre flicks, he’s the best person to tell their story. There is no cynicism here. This is a professional who put his body on the line to help craft what many armchair critics would dismiss as “crap”. We know as well as he knows (at least by the time the credits roll) that these films were so much more. His life, the summation of hundreds of parts, is a testament to that.

This documentary is not for everyone. My fellow film nerds (‘sup, bro) will probably love it, assuming they can get over themselves and ignore the lackluster look. Your average Amazon reviewer will probably skewer it for many of the reasons I mentioned above. However, if you love stuntmen or just want to better appreciate films that you might have otherwise ignored, Danger God might be for you.