At the time of writing, "The Fall Guy" is underperforming at the box office, and nobody is really sure why. The movie seems to have all the boxes ticked. It's an action comedy about a stuntman, played by Ryan Gosling, with Emily Blunt as the love interest, and directed by former stuntman David Leitch. It's technically based on a 1980s Lee Majors action show that nobody remembers, but "The Fall Guy" movie pings as an original in every way that matters. And it's a fun one.
Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stunt man who usually doubles for pompous movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). After a stunt goes wrong and puts Colt in the hospital, he quits performing. However, he's reeled back in for the production of "Metalstorm," the directing debut of his ex-girlfriend Jody Moreno (Blunt). As Colt tries to win Jody back, Tom Ryder goes missing. The film's producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) wants Colt to track him down, which leads to murder, mayhem, drugs, a dog named Jean Claude, and lots, and lots of fight and chase scenes.
The script by Drew Pearce leans hard into the meta, and "The Fall Guy" is really a paean to the underappreciated stunt community. Cole takes multi-story falls, rolls cars, gets set on fire, and flung around like a rag doll while the actor gets all the credit. At the same time, the movie is a spoof on the Hollywood moviemaking process, where all of these talented people are putting all their efforts toward making a movie that is, frankly, completely ridiculous. "Metalstorm" is some sort of space opera B-movie that Jody insists on using mostly practical stunts and costumes to realize. I also enjoy some of the shots the script takes at celebrities, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson gamely playing a thin-skinned, pampered moron, and Hannah Waddingham embodying the fast-talking, Type-A talent wrangler who is constantly in crisis mode.
I found the movie less interesting when it was trying to be clever. Some of the jokes and gags work, but Blunt and Gosling's banter isn't as fun as the movie thinks it is, and some of the meta commentary is way too on the nose. It's fun to get an insider look at what's actually happening on a film set, but that mostly goes away after the opening sequence. David Leitch is great when it comes to action, but not so good at humor, and on the iffy side when it comes to exposition. And there is way too much exposition here. Fortunately, "The Fall Guy" is constructed to give plenty of excuses for crazy action sequences of every possible kind. You will see stunts involving cars, helicopters, speedboats, and motorcycles. You will see gunfights, hand to hand combat, and people dangling over very steep drops. The finale where the movie set turns into a free-for-all of mayhem is a blast.
Gosling continues to make a case for himself as an A-lister, though "The Fall Guy" marks yet another of his projects that has underperformed. He's dryly funny, charismatic as anything, and has just enough everyman weariness that you have to root for him. I love that he's allowed to be an idiot in this role, mixing up his movie references and coming up with plans that always end in beating people up. I could have used more of that for Emily Blunt's character, who should be way more stressed out as a first time film director. She's too often an afterthought here, which is a shame. I also don't think we got enough of the supporting cast, which includes Winston Duke as a stunt coordinator, Teresa Palmer as Tom Ryder's girlfriend, and Stephanie Hsu, who drops in briefly as a frazzled PA.
But let's be clear. The stunt and action scenes are the main event, and everything else is secondary. Oh, and it is absolutely not optional to sit through the closing credits, which feature plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of how many of the movie's stunts were accomplished, and closer looks at the many brave stunt workers involved. Its nice to find a movie so invested in recognizing the team effort.
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