Ken Carter was a stunt driver who dared to match Evel Knievel’s heights, but always fell just a bit short. Jay Baruchel’s performance as this risk-taking figure might be one of his finest, but it’s locked in a film that can’t quite decide how to explore him. The film clearly favors the concerns and complexities of his most dangerous jump with a rocket car, but never quite knows where it’s going with all this. Perhaps somewhere within the tactile focus on cars, rockets, and physics, something more profound would emerge. The end result is like watching a car with the most powerful engine pull donuts in a parking lot; neat to watch, but you wish you could see it on the road.

Baruchel is used to playing awkward guys in his earlier roles, but here he plays a man who is egotistical, weary, fearful, and just closed off enough to not reveal his nervous feet on the pedals. He portrays the driver once dubbed The Mad Canadian as a more humanistic figure rather than a heroic force willing to jump great distances. Around the cameras filming documentary footage (presented in an apt, retro format), he’s honest enough to talk about his injury history in detail, but performative enough to play to the camera when it’s time for an inspirational monologue. His love interest, Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf), recognizes the dangers of that lifestyle but tries not to let those fears get between Ken and his career.

Frustrations brew when Ken proposes his most daring jump yet. After becoming aggravated with Knievel’s failed rocket stunt, Ken decides to try a similar jump by strapping a rocket to a car and clearing a massive distance. One thing after another keeps stalling what would be a TV-worthy stunt. A reluctant rocket engineer, Dick Keller (Ed Helms), doubts the car’s safety throughout, but helps Ken anyway for fear he’ll use someone less thoughtful about the technical issues. Organizers clash over how much money is being spent and how much time is being wasted when everything from the ramp to the car to the track to the weather seems to go awry. A quiet form of existential dread brews in Ken, fearing this stunt will be his last. That fear grows harder to conceal as time passes and voices rise, leading to brash decisions that hurt people.

Director Michael Dowse spends a lot of time focusing on the mechanics of such a stunt, which I suppose will appease the dadcore crowd ready to scrutinize the nuts and bolts. The problem is that the jump itself wasn’t all that interesting on its face. The failure of such an automotive event doesn’t have much appeal on its face, which means the movie really needs to refuel this historical moment with something more dramatically satisfying. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to explore. The best scenes feature Ken and Dick debating who has the right to veto such a jump, with Dick’s finger hovering over the abort button, only to loosen it over time to see if Ken has the guts to push it himself. But for a film that brands itself as a low-key comedy, it doesn’t find many amusing scenes in this endeavor, even with the clash of a highly critical Evel Knievel played by Ben Foster.

The Stunt Driver highlights a unique moment in a daredevil’s life, but never hits top speed to leave the biopic slow lane. All the components are there, with Baruchel and Helms giving earnest performances that never try too hard to mock the figures they portray or treat them with too much seriousness. But so much focus is placed on a singular jump that never came to be, with an anxiety that never fully materializes in this offbeat picture that is mostly off. A handful of scenes are intriguing, and watching the many stunts come together was fascinating the few times the audience gets a glimpse under the hood. But now that I’ve seen Jay Baruchel at his finest, I want to see what other roads he can navigate rather than this ho-hum track.

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