Movie Review ~ The Fall Guy

I love film festivals, as recent evidence clearly shows, but they can be a little numbing after a while for everything from their subject matter to the performances.  I get it; it’s challenging to make art and raise the stakes in international cinema, which means reaching your target audience in the country where the film was produced and crossing borders to speak to viewers worldwide.  I think what can happen, though, is from a critic’s perspective, we forget that movies are also meant to entertain and divert, take you away from the serious and highfalutin.  It’s OK to unwind, unravel, and not have every corner line up perfectly with an edge.  

The Fall Guy is the latest experience I’ve encountered that has sharply divided some early critics, and I was curious to see for myself what camp I would wind up in.  Would I, ahem, fall for the dynamite pairing of recent Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt as former lovers involved in a Hollywood production who get swept away in a murder mystery?  Or would the slick showiness of former stuntman turned director David Leitch overwhelm the picture, turning what should be cutthroat into cutesy?  It was apparent early on that I was tripping over myself to love the movie, a big ‘ole summer blockbuster with Movie Stars (that’s with a capital M and S for a reason) that precisely knows the audience it is playing for.

From its audacious opening– a near one-take shot in which seasoned stunt performer Colt Seavers (Gosling, Barbie) suffers a shattering on-set accident while doubling for noxious action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Godzilla) – The Fall Guy makes it clear that it is going to be more than the action comedy the trailers made it out to be.  It’s all that and a thoughtful tribute to the unheralded professionals who have delivered some of Hollywood’s best thrills since cinema began. Showing what can happen when bravado leads to negligence, Leitch is only skimming the surface of current problems within the industry.

Eighteen months after Colt abandons his career post-injury and his camera-operator girlfriend Jody (Blunt, Oppenheimer) in the process, he gets a phone call from the producer (Hannah Waddingham, Hocus Pocus 2) of Ryder’s next film. She needs him back to perform a stunt Ryder and his new double can’t perform, and though he initially declines, Colt eventually makes the trip to Syndey when he finds out the film is Metalstorm, Jody’s first film as a director.  When he arrives, it’s a chilly reception from Jody but not as cold as the body he finds on ice in Ryder’s loft, setting off a turbo-charged descent into cat-and-mouse neo-noir mayhem that puts everyone in extreme danger.

Having choreographed what I would call cinematic ballets of violence as the director of Atomic Blonde, Leitch’s Bullet Train was fun but lacked the same focused energy.  He brings a visceral realism back to the action sequences in The Fall Guy, and while it often has the feel of a contained, low-stakes romp that you’d see on TV, I think it’s intentional.  After all, this is based on the popular Lee Majors show, which ran from 1981 to 1986. Leitch’s knowledge of physical storytelling through stunt performers enriches each chase, fight, and breathtaking stunt, all while celebrating the artistry behind these precise thrills.

Grounding the chaos cooked up by screenwriter Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) is the swoon-worthy central pairing of Gosling and Blunt, riffing with effervescent chemistry as their characters’ fling is rekindled amid the madness. Blunt, in particular, shines, bringing shades of grit and the determination of a first-time director to a character who could have quickly devolved into bland stereotypes. It helps that Gosling is in advanced puppy dog mode for most of the movie, almost unbearably easy on the eyes and finding little ways to make Colt quirky enough to let him stand out but not fit in.  

Like Bullet Train, Leitch has cast an eclectic supporting cast traveling down surprising paths.  They’ve somehow managed to make the Amazonian Waddingham feel more like us mere mortals by simply making her a bewigged Diet Coke addict (a trait that’s been developed solely as a plot mechanism late in the film).  Taylor-Johnson is giving a full impression of McConaughey that you almost wonder if Leitch envisioned him in the role instead, and Winston Duke (Us) gets in on the action late in the game as the lead stunt coordinator for Jody’s film.  Another recent Oscar nominee, Stephanie Hsu (Leo), pops up for a brief stunt sequence and then again in the post-credits.  

It would have been easy for Leitch to work with cinematographer Jonathan Sela (Deadpool 2) to film his stunts with the most precision and ignore the more standard elements of the film, but he’s given these departments carte blanche to find their place in this world as well.  Production designer David Scheunemann (Gunpowder Milkshake) has fun with the Sydney setting and the opportunity to imagine a world within the apocalyptic film Jody is creating.  That same world of Metalstorm has several costumes designed by Sarah Evelyn that are humorously Dune-ish while off-set Gosling manages to make any jacket and jean combo look ultra cool, and Blunt turns the Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants into this year’s fashion trend.

A high-speed homage to Hollywood’s often unrewarded heroes, this deliriously fun pre-summer escapade through the world of stunt work through mystery and action is as entertaining as any studio behemoth could aspire to be. From its wildly convoluted plot machinations involving deepfake technology to its sly lampooning of Hollywood excess, The Fall Guy represents a meta riff on the action spectacles that sat atop the box office in the ’90s.  Propelled by Gosling and Blunt’s terrific chemistry and a series of needle drops, this is a movie to (bungee) jump for joy over.