Evel Knievel (2004 film)
2004 film by John Badham
Evel Knievel is a 2004 American drama film directed by John Badham and written by Jason Horwitch, about American stunt performer and entertainer Evel Knievel. Based on the 2000 biography Evel Incarnate by Steve Mandich, the film stars George Eads as Knievel, with Jaime Pressly, Lance Henriksen, Fred Thompson, Beau Bridges, Matt Gordon and Peter MacNeill. The film premiered on TNT on July 30, 2004. The movie is well known for its many gaffes and inaccurate portrayal of Knievel and his career.
Plot
The film begins with Evel Knievel preparing to jump the fountains at Caesars Palace in front of a large audience. A flashback to Butte, Montana in 1950, 12-year-old Bobby Knievel steals some hubcaps and then escapes on his bicycle before being caught and arrested. In 1958, while working for the Anaconda Mining Company, he observes the lung damage affecting the older miners and resolves to make a living performing motorcycle stunts instead. He meets Linda Bork, whose friends advise her to stay away from him. They marry and have two children, Kelly and Robbie, as Knievel's reputation as a stunt rider grows.
Knievel makes a deal to jump the fountains at Caesars Palace on New Years Eve 1967 (subtitled with the incorrect date of 1968 and using Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1974 song "Call Me the Breeze").
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This entry incorporates text from “Evel Knievel (2004 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.