Coming off of Smokey and the Bandit, Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Sally Field paired up again for Hooper, a love letter to the stuntmen (and women) of Hollywood – who still aren’t recognized for their contributions with an Academy Award.

Reynolds is Hooper an aging stuntman who pals around with Cully (James Best) and exasperates his girlfriend, Gwen (Field) despite the fact that her father, Jocko (Brian Keith) is a stuntman as well.

He’s currently working on a spy thriller, The Spy Who Laughed at Danger starring Adam West (Adam West), and he’s Adam’s stuntman, doing falls, fights, and motorcycle stunts.

But the pain isn’t going away as quickly as it used to, and it seems there’s a new, younger stuntman on the scene, Ski (Jan-Micheal Vincent).

Both Neeham and Reynolds have a history of doing stunts, and this film was their way of paying homage and thanks to the craft. Sure, the storyline sounds dramatic, an aging stuntman dealing with his own mortality but there are a lot of laughs, and a lot of fun to be had throughout the film.

Not to mention a number of fantastic stunts.

The director of the spy film has just been encouraged by Ski to come up with a whole new stunt-filled ending to the picture, and this causes Hooper a bit of a crisis, and sets up his exit from the trade – but if you’re going to go, go big!

Hooper is wonderfully funny, incredibly well-crafted, and honestly, this is Reynolds just being hilarious, charming and awesome. There are some great lines, and some of it feels improvised, a lot of the stuff between Field, Reynolds and Best just feels like they are riffing and playing with one another, and it just happened to be captured by the camera.

It’s vastly entertaining, there’s a lot of fun moments, the stunts are well plotted and shot, and the way they fill the film is stunning, because cinema lovers know how dangerous they all are. The stuntman’s benefit show is a prime example. There is so much going on, all of it planned for, prepared for to make it as safe as possible.

And that last sequence, known as Damnation Alley, is stunning and still stands up today.

And through the entire film is Reynolds’ high-pitched, infectious laugh.

Field is drastically underused in the film, but she and Reynolds are utterly charming together, and you can see that they really did care for one another.

Sadly, after this Needham’s films, as a director, got progressively worse, but that doesn’t change the fact that I enjoyed the hell out of some of ’em. I’m looking at you Megaforce (so bad it’s badly good).

But this and Smokey and The Bandit, are just joyous celebrations of film, friendship and stunts, and damn, Reynolds is just so likable every moment he is on screen.