Jesse Moss’s compassionate, astute documentary The Bandit deftly explores both the making of the iconic 1977 American action film Smokey and the Bandit and the moving, often raucous relationship between the film’s mega-star, Burt Reynolds, and its director, Oscar-winning stuntman Hal Needham. One of America’s most important young documentarians, Moss has moved from the tough terrain of his Sundance-awardwinning film The Overnighters, which chronicled the tensions and toll of unemployment in America’s Heartland, to a seemingly lighter subject, but with his characteristic probing eye for the complexities and turmoil that lie just beneath of the surface of the film’s subject. The Bandit is not just about stunts, Hollywood studio politics and film stardom, but also the dreams and aspirations of Reynolds and Needham, The Star and The Stuntman, two figures at the top of show business who still had much to prove and a movie to make. Smokey became one of the biggest films of all time, and their friendship became the stuff of Hollywood legend. Steven Gaydos