Evel Knievel

I saw this movie in the dollar bin of the grocery store and I couldn't help smiling. I had no idea if it would be worth a sitting, but I discovered to my joy that this film captures the energy and twisted, booze-fueled optimism of 1971 only too well. There is a senior thesis and a kitsch musical trapped in this time capsule. It is both a on-the-spot knowing parody of 70's machismo and a hapless apology for it, a living testimony to a living person.

George Hamilton in 1971 didn't seem to know how to act, he swaggered humorlessly and proclaimed, and chewed gum like Burt Reynolds. John Milius and a 90 year old Englishman scripted this, so Evel's lines are filled with references and heightened language that are quite outside the range of a dropout sociopath. And yet this movie isn't dead. It has an intentness, a brio, a sort of-- pertness. It deserves to have eyeballs given to it, over a few sittings, over a few lunch hours, using the DVD feature of your workstation in your cubicle. Go to your supermarket today!

This is a biopic of Evel Knievel with George Harrison playing the larger than life stunt rider/dare devil Bobby Knievel.

The film is told through remembered highlights of his life while he is preparing for a big jump in front of thousands. He grew up in Butte, Montana which he described as being dangerous because there were mines ready to collapse every where. His inspiration may have come from his first daredevil show that his grandmother took him to in which one gentleman blew himself up with dynamite and another guy got smashend to death on a retaining wall. "I found it to be a very moving experience."-Bobby Knievel

It then goes on to show Bobby stealing in a very public way from the safe of a local store...then dynomiting through the wall of City Hall to steal tax money. Both of these were done in a way that showed just how charismatic he really was. Everyone seems to know him in his home town, including the police.

He meets his future wife, Linda, when she is still in high school and he is a bit of a show off hoodlum dropout. While showing off to Linda, he gets himself arrested and thrown in jail for reckless driving. While in jail it is discovered during role call that he is in the clink with a man nick-named "awful" knoffl and thus was born his moniker "Evel" Knievel.

Evel started motorcycle jumping at a rodeo as Bobby and his jumps just got more elaborate as Evel. They were performed in front of bigger and bigger audiences. They showed that he had a contentious relationship with his doctor who continued to reset all of the bones he broke in his daredevil stunt mishaps.

He was famous for saying repeatedly, "Fear is not a word in my vocabulary."

The movie all leads up to a big jump in front of a huge crowd and end with him driving his motorcycle up to the Grand Canyon, a jump he always wanted to make.

When I was a child in the 70's I actually had one of the Evel Knievel stunt bikes and I ran into Evel at a gas station in Post Falls, Idaho where we were both gassing up...of course he was in his sixties at the time and it would be close to the end of his life.

"The only choice left to us is death...and mine will be glorious!"-Evel Knievel.

This was actually a fun biopic. I appreciated George Hamilton's confident take on such a charismatic character.

"Evel Knievel" doesn't pretend to be anything more than lightweight, escapist entertainment. If it takes liberties with Knievel's life, guess what--it's by no means the only such movie that's done so. Virtually every movie that's been made about an actual person(s) or historical event has taken liberties.

Most of the reviewers here seem to have taken a perverse satisfaction in beating up on a movie that Variety complimented for its "sheer comic relief." In fact, some of the reviews are so similar, it's difficult to believe that their authors have not taken "inspiration" from their predecessors, especially the first review, which offset every negative criticism with a positive one and made the word "mishmash" a must-use adjective for his successors.

This film is not a mishmash--it's a disappointment. Anyone who can't follow its storyline must still be reading the funny pages. The main problem is that half of this movie is good and the other half isn't. The good half is the flashbacks that deal with Knievel before he became the legend that he was when this film was released.

The film has its comedic moments, portraying Knievel as a man fearful of being hurt (he's afraid of needles, for instance) except when he's on a motorcycle. The filmmakers want us to like Knievel and realize that, in many ways, he's just like us. So, we end up with a semi-caricature, an ersatz imitation. But, this is most evident in the "present" time scenes, which are largely disposable, and serve no better purpose than filling gaps between flashbacks.

This was a low budget film, a quickie vehicle to make a quick buck, that has a movie-of-the-week quality at times. During the climactic jump, actual footage of the real Knievel is spliced with close-ups of extras turning their heads to watch the bike's trajectory, along with close-ups of what is supposed to be Knievel's bike suspended in air, are amateurishly staged. One particular highlight is a montage of Knievel stunt footage and, of course, the infamous Caesar's Palace jump.

Hamilton's performance is surprisingly good. In that sense, he is miscast but has a winning persona. The flashbacks are really not confusing. In fact, with few exceptions, they're the best parts of the movie. Perhaps it would have been better if the story had been told in a linear fashion. The biggest problem is when the flashbacks end and the movie returns to the present, where Knievel and his wife, Sue Lyons (who is basically window dressing and shares zero chemistry with Hamilton; and although the supporting cast contains a couple of familiar faces, they are lackluster) are spending the day behind-the-scenes at the Ontario Motor Speedway, where Knievel make a jump that evening.

Little of this material is good and is contrasts badly with the flashbacks. Hamilton's performance even suffers in the present-time scenes. He comes across as a stiff, pompous, bellyacher. Part of this is due to Knievel the iconic hero being portrayed as a high-maintenance griper, without the winning "bad boy" qualities Hamilton plays so well in the flashbacks, when he's a likable, non-dangerous hood.

His real private life became all-too-public and ugly at the height of his fame. A number of documentaries (with which Knievel cooperated) have shown about what the daredevil's private life was REALLY like, this is understandable (think of a boozing, out-of-control, sex-addicted rock star, besieged by groupies, enjoying a different woman every day and often more than one—his personal record for a single day was something like seven women). Unfortunately, the films suffers badly as a result.

This was another piece of merchandise cranked out when Knievel was a household name and an incredibly popular hero whose image was on posters, lunch boxes, his own cartoon series,and even an Evel Knievel, motorcycle-riding doll by Mattel. So we get a sanitized version of Knievel's life in keeping with the squeaky-clean public persona that never was. That's one reason why the flashbacks are probably more entertaining—they're closer to the truth.

Even so, Knievel is good, clean fun and I've always liked its theme song, although I don't know who sang it and it never charted.

Marvelous AND surreal biography of the craziest man ever to jump a phalanx of buses on "Wide World of Sports." When I was a kid I even had the Evel Knievel doll and revved-up bike--which could actually soar across the linoleum floor. Returning to the movie, you would be hard pressed to find a more carefree fellow than Evel. He prides himself on his plethora of broken bones and slipped disks. Actual footage of his real jumps is seamlessly cut into the film. It's truly amazing this man is still alive to this day. Remember, once he really did try to fly over a canyon named "Snake River." George Hamilton torpedoed his own career by making poor choices along the way--but this was his zenith. Sue Lyon lends a sympathetic ear and is easy on the eye. This movie promises even more when Mr. Knievel pops a wheelie across the Grand Canyon. Well, not really. But one can dream. Later on, Knievel would star in his own bio-pic called "Viva Knievel."

George Hamilton is looser than usual portraying 20th century phenomenon Bobby "Evel" Knievel, a young hell-raiser from Butte, Montana who graduated from motorcycle stunts in front of small rodeo crowds to death-defying jumps in front of thousands. Written by Alan Caillou and John Milius, the high-flown 'humility' from Knievel is sometimes hard to swallow (particularly his lengthy speech at the picture's opening); however, the self-praise isn't damning in the rowdy flashbacks to Knievel's early years, which include cop-baiting chases and sorority-crashing adventures. The modern-day Evel is shown as a paranoid egomaniac with a short temper, and every segue back to the present day is a bummer. Not particularly well-directed or assembled, but produced handsomely (by Hamilton) and moderately engaging. ** from ****