Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 2:1	Budget Medium

Double Dare is a documentary about stunt women. The title refers to a children's saying (I double dare you) and to the two women stunt doubles the film is about. Jeannie Epper's carreer goes back to doubling for Linda Evans in the Big Valley. She has worked pretty consistently and continues working in her sixties both as a stunt woman and a stunt coordinator. Zoe Bell seems to have started off in stunt work doubling for Lucy Lawless in Xena. With Epper's help, she auditioned for Quentin Terentino and has since worked for him on several films. The two women get pretty much equal screen time, though Zoe gets more shots doing actual stuntwork. This is intentional. Jeannie is facing a tough transition in her carrer, she is trying to go from doing stunts to being a stunt coordinator and Zoe is just breaking into the business.

This is incredibly unfair to Jeannie Epper and I do not mean it as a slam in any way, but Zoe comes off like a little Labrador puppy and Jeannie seems like an old hound dog. Jeannie is caring and family oriented, she obviously loves her children and grandchildren and worries about her entire extended family of stunt men and stunt women. Zoe is a little less sure of herself. She is not the first person to goof off on the set, but once the scrum starts she throws herself in gleefully. There is a certain symmetry in their concerns as they enter the new phases of their lives because even though they are both a little hesitant, they both are absolutely sure of what they want to do. Whether it is Zoe leaving behind her friends and family in New Zeland or Jeannie making a couple dozen calls to try to drum up some work, the apprehension and risk of rejection is worth it. Perhaps when Jeannie talks about being a stunt coordinator, she has an understanding of the added responsibility of the position. Zoe is just so excited about just getting a job that she doesn't seem to get the high level that she just got bumped to. When Torentino signed her up for Kill Bill he was taking a big chance, but Zoe came through for him. Obviously her work with Xena paid off as she was pretty familiar with swords, but she had to stop behaving like Lucy Lawless and start moving like Uma Thurman.

Twice during the film, we see Zoe warming up. She lays out backwards and puts her hands on the floor, then kicks a leg up and slowly rolls up on to her hands and then over to her feet. I watched her do that twice with great admiration. It was not until I did some checking later and found out she did stunt work for Rodriguez's contribution to Grindhouse, Terror Planet. This move turns out to be one of Rose McGowan's useless talents (number 66 to be exact) that proves helpful after all when she uses it to dodge a missle. There is no way this move did not come from Zoe, undoubtably both Torentino and Rodriquez saw her doing this warming up and knew they needed to find a way to use it. I find it pretty amusing that both Amanda Micheli and Rodriquez would use the image twice.

This is almost certainly Zoe from Terror Planet.

There are some scenes in the documentary that I am not particuarly fond of. I think a bit too much time is spent with Epper's family. Also Jeannie champions Zoe but we never quite know why. The film does not show them working out or working together. Instead we see them spending time at an awards show. Zoe leaves LA for a while and then comes back to attend a high fall training session and suddenly has a chance to audition for Teretino almost out of the blue. We are pretty confident that Zoe is up for the challenge because we have seen her work, but we don't know if Jeannie ever has. Not a big complaint, but I would have liked a little more reason for the confidence that Jeannie has in Zoe.

The nice thing about the DVD is the extended and deleted scenes. Usually watching these helps give some insight to how the director polished the story. Frequently there will be really clever or funny bits that are cut from the movie because they either don't fit or they are unnecessary and interrupt the flow of the movie. In this case there are almost enough deleted bits to make a second movie. There was a lot more of Zoe doing stunts and some additional scenes of Jeannie worrying. I am disappointed that the only stunt we get to see Jeannie do is to fall on a table. (Though we do get a quick shot of the mud slide scene from Romancing the Stone.) Interestingly enough there are two quick shots of Zoe smoking cigarettes in the deleted scenes. I would definetely recommend watching these scenes. I think there was plenty of room for some of this material in the final cut, which is unusal for me as normally I agree with the director on deleted scenes.

Overall I think this is worth viewing. Be a little patient, it is a documentary so the plot is not as important as in, say, a murder mystery and the few dry spells are not devastating.

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