I’d never heard of parkour super group Storror before watching this film. That didn’t matter.
I was hooked by this invigorating documentary from the title card, and found myself crying as the credits rolled and the crowd rose to their feet to applaud the Storror crew and the master of Bayhem himself, Mr. Michael Bay. Apparently when Bay decided to add some parkour elements into his action film 6 Underground, he sought out the best in the world and found them in the Storror crew, who have achieved a global following through their YouTube channel. Their working relationship got on so well that they linked up during the COVID era and after years of work, churned out this remarkable documentary We Are Storror.
The pitch was easy for me. Michael Bay directed a documentary about parkour? In other words, the frenetic and groundbreaking camera work of, say, Ambulance, combined with the anxiety-inducing energy of climbing doc Free Solo? Count me in without any further details needed. (Although, in Free Solo, you kind of knew you weren’t going to see this guy fall. That’s not always the case here!) And yes, there were moments of extremely thrilling and harrowing stunts, captured by the Storror guys themselves (they’re accomplished content creators), as well as some (what else can I call them but:) action set pieces that feel engineered for a level of Bay energy that befits the man himself. But above and beyond the sometimes nauseating and always spectacular parkour stunts, which were born for the YouTube era and have innate cinematic qualities to them, there’s a fascinating beating heart at the core of the film. And believe it or not, even if you’ve never even heard of parkour, much less done it, the film is highly relatable and emotionally resonant.
Storror are a squad of 7 guys who started messing around as children together in London, filming various pranks, stunts, and daring acts of tresspassing. There are two sets of brothers in the crew, and together they have a lifelong bond formed that’s so far lasted 16 years and led them to being one of the premiere YouTube channels in the United Kingdom. The film isn’t just a flashy capturing of their daring exploits. It’s a genuine look at the pure pursuit of art, damn the consequences. It’s a portrait of growing up, growing older, and growing apart. It’s a reflection on the fleeting nature of our lives and the limitations of our bodies. It’s men pursuing a passion, together, and being remarkably open, honest, and skeptical of the paths they’ve chosen. It also jumps around in time covering roughly 16 years that endears you to the guys, and grounds you in their journey (all of which is masterfully edited).
You’re watching these guys risk their lives over and over again, and sometimes you feel like their mother, wanting to “tsk tsk” them and tell them to get down from there before they hurt themselves. But then you’ll see them prepping, planning, choreographing, and doing all the safety work they can. And then the drones take off, the needle drops, and you watch pure, unbridled beauty in motion happen on the big screen and you understand that these are artists and athletes, pushing the boundaries of the human experience in a way that is instantly meaningful, nay profound.
I can’t relate to jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and I never will. But I can connect with having to make a choice between your family/career/safety and your art. I can resonate with what it means to have to commit so fully to something that you’ll be letting down your team if you half ass it. We can all relate to searching for meaning, connection, and purpose. And that’s central to the experience of We Are Storror.
But it also kicks incredible amounts of ass. These guys are showmen. They’re visual artists. This doc takes us with them to exotic locations as they design stunning parkour sequences and then we see them. Clear as day. With popping color and soaring aerials. They see cities from an entirely different perspective than we do and James Gunn or Matt Reeves’ Batman teams would do well to hire these guys to give us the most breathtaking rooftop chases we’ve ever seen. It’s a remarkable cinematic experience and I’ll be forever grateful I was able to see this on a big screen. The film has not scored distribution yet and I’m hopeful that a theatrical distributor will snatch it up and show this on the biggest screens in the world. (Cough, IMAX, cough).
Bay is a proven master of spectacle with really little left to prove at this stage of his career. And as much as we all love his gloves off excess, this Bay fan tends to connect most with some of his more grounded (for Bay) offerings, like the aforementioned Ambulance, or Pain And Gain, or even 13 Hours. At Bay’s direction here, the Storror crew opened up, stripped down (sometimes literally), got vulnerable, and made this film about pushing boundaries, seeking purity, and understanding when to change. It’s a character study filled with humanity, even when flirting with superhuman capability. It’s a singular cinematic experience viewers won’t soon forget.
And I’m Out.
