Hooper

Another movie that has a thin plot as a frame for something else is Hooper. For some reason, this aired as part of TCM Underground, but really isn't an underground movie at all.

Burt Reynolds plays Sonny Hooper, who at the beginning of the movie is getting ready for a day at work, which involves putting on special clothes and padding, and walking around in a way that makes it look like he's in pain. If you didn't know the plot of the movie, you might guess this is one of those football movies with the standard trope of a player being in chronic pain at the end of his career, but instead it's a different subject. Sonny is a Hollywood stuntman, working as the stunt coordinator for a movie starring Adam West (playing himself in a brief cameo) and directed by Roger Deal (Robert Klein).

Hooper's stunt for today involves crashing a motorcycle. It's painful enough that he gets pain pills from his manager Cully (James Best), something that concerns the people around him. Deal wants to get the picture done, while Hooper's doctor eventually warns him that breaking one more bone from doing stunts could leave him paralyzed for life. Meanwhile, Hooper has a teacher girlfriend in Gwen Doyle (Sally Field), whose father Jocko (Brian Keith) is a retired stuntman and a good friend of Hooper's.

The stunt crew, doing a dangerous job and there not being that many of them, have a fairly tight-knit community, but the times are changing. None of them is getting any younger, and Father Time is going to force all of them to retire just like in any sport. Meanwhile, there's a new generation of stuntmen coming up, and one of them, Delmore Shidski (Jan-Michael Vincent), shows up on the set. Since Hooper is technically the boss of the stunt crew for the movie, it's up to him to hire the new guy, to whom he gives the nickname "Ski". Ski is a good stuntman, but also one who calculates all the risks before figuring out what to do. He may be able to lessen the risks, but this is still the era before CGI.

At first, Hooper is wary of Ski, and still wants to show Ski that there's life in the old dog yet. But after hearing from the doctor about the risks to his health, Hooper starts to develop a healthy respect for Ski who, in turn, is also learning from Hooper, notably by finally giving in and having beers with Hooper. Eventually, it's time for the finale, and Ski comes up with an idea for a great stunt, but it's one that hasn't been done before and is going to be very dangerous.

While there is a plot to Hooper, it's a fairly old plot of the grizzled old veteran versus the new young buck which can be seen in a lot of contexts, from sports movies to Gregory Peck as The Gunfighter. In reality, Hooper is more a vehicle for stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham to film a bunch of stunts and put them on screen in a way that looks more coherent than just random clips. (The movie does, however, have teacher Gwen take her class on a field trip to the studio ranch as an excuse to show Western stunts, since the movie Hooper is working on is nominally a spy movie.)

The stunts, however, work, and Reynolds' easy charm makes Hooper easy to watch and very entertaining. There's nothing groundbreaking here and certainly not the world's best acting. But if you like watching stuntwork, then you'll definitely be entertained by Hooper.