When I was a kid, my two best friends would often tell me stories about their uncle who was a stunt driver for Herbie the Love Bug. I was always jealous, not just because they knew a celebrity but because they knew a stuntman.

As I grew up, I could generally predict how much I’d enjoy an action film based purely on the amount of CGI vs. actual stunts shown in the trailer. The more stunts, the better.

So it was fortuitous that I was privileged enough to sit down and watch an advanced screener of a new documentary: Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story (available digitally 9/22). And may I say, it was all I hoped for and more.

The film, based on a book by Mollie Gregory, is yet another Shout! Factory gem. For almost the entire film, I was treated to clips from films from as far back as the days when movies cost just a nickel (search for clips of Helen Gibson and be amazed) all the way through the current Fast and Furious franchise.

Whether it’s women doing stunts via rodeo, fire, fist fights, falls, car flips, or anything else you can imagine, it was all shown, dissected, and celebrated.

The only complaint I had, which is probably more of a nitpick than a true complaint, is the first thing I noticed about the film. It’s a bit hard to see how it was organized. It didn’t detract from the film necessarily, but it did occasionally have me wondering where it was headed, because I couldn’t necessarily tell you where we’d been or where we were.

The beginning of the documentary covered the very existence of stuntwomen. The film then went into their biggest obstacles, and it ended with the current state of the industry. But there’s a LOT of overlap in those periods, and a lot of other things are covered.

With that one minor complaint out of the way, what is this documentary about? Well, as you might have guessed, it’s about stuntwomen. It’s their stories, personalities, numbers, struggles, successes, failures, pain, femininity, masculinity, and so much more. Narrator Michelle Rodriguez carries us along the journey, although she plays a small role, as the stories and interviews do most of the work on their own.

The first third of the movie simply introduces us to most of the cast. And it’s a larger cast than I expected. The eldest stateswomen of the cast included Jeannie Epper (Lynda Carter/Wonder Woman’s stuntwoman), Julie Ann Johnson (Charlie’s Angels), and Jadie David (Foxy Brown). Each was interviewed by and with a younger stuntwoman who was there to share and compare their current experiences.

If the entire movie were simply been interviews with these women, it would have been worth every penny. Their stories and passion for what they do are absolutely fascinating.

The rest of the cast (they managed to keep introducing them all the way through the end of the film) included several women of color who discussed issues surrounding racism in the industry. Again, a small nitpick, as the focus of the film was centered on gender rather than race, but I found this to be a fascinating thread that was never really followed. I would have been interested to hear more about their experiences beyond the tidbits they offered.

However, we do get a fairly thorough look at the body issues that stuntwomen face. We see that, in order to perform the stunts required of them, many have to be muscular, yet they’re also expected to body double for an A-list actress whose weight might be 110 pounds. The women discussing this were all, as you’d expect, in tip-top physical shape, yet they had to deal with directors who were asking them to “drop 10 pounds” or sending them to the costume department for larger sizes (because they had the muscles to do a back flip into a cartwheel while wielding two katanas).

Suffice it to say, Hollywood will likely always create body image issues for women, but this is an insider’s look at a glaring issue I doubt many of us would have ever thought of.

The rest of the film looks at the growth of the industry (albeit in baby steps, through the eyes of women such as stunt coordinator Melissa R. Stubbs, for example) and the humanity of women who’ve lived the hardest parts of the work. Jeannie Epper and Jadie David in particular have riveting moments where they share the losses and injuries of fellow stunt performers and the frustration at their inability to continue in a field that gave them so much fulfillment.

In the end, Stuntwomen was, like any great action film, impossible to look away from. It’s not the kind of documentary you watch while playing a game on your phone or doom scrolling Twitter. It’s action scene followed by riveting interview, over and over and over. It was exciting, thought provoking, and heartwarming.

And that’s not even mentioning highlights such as Keisha Tucker showing how hard the stunts are, Heidi Moneymaker having the best name ever, Jessie Graff (my favorite American Ninja Warrior), and the problem of “wigging.” There’s SO much covered, it could just have easily been a miniseries.

Anecdotally, there’s a scene in the film where one of the women was discussing auxiliary stunts – where someone might be shot in the background, or fly through the air, or be set on fire and run across the street. A director pointed out that he didn’t like having women be punched in the face or set on fire, and I told my wife that I sympathized with him. Chivalry has taught me to never hit a woman, always open the door for a lady, and whatever you do, don’t set a female on fire even if they have protective gear in place.

My wife, after hearing my thoughts, looked at me and boldly proclaimed, “SCREW CHIVALRY!! WE WANT TO GET SET ON FIRE!!!”

I give this film 5 out of 5 Debbie-Evans-stories-about-driving-90-mph-against-traffic-between-two-18-wheelers-in-The–Matrix–Reloaded.