The Fall Guy Is a Funny, Romantic, Stunt-Filled Delight

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Ryan Gosling successful The Fall Guy. Photo: Universal Pictures

This reappraisal was primitively published connected March 12, 2024. We’re republishing it arsenic The Fall Guy enters theaters starting May 3.

Look, there’s nary mode I tin beryllium nonsubjective astir immoderate movie that features a opus astir however there’s inactive no Oscar for Best Stunts, truthful I won’t adjacent try. David Leitch’s The Fall Guy, an action-comedy enigma romance acceptable successful the satellite of stunt professionals, is an enactment of axenic movie love, mixing and matching genres portion tossing disconnected in-jokes and references to its illustrious (and not-so-illustrious) forebears. It’s the benignant of representation that tin casually usage a Miami Vice Stunt Team overgarment arsenic a crippled instrumentality — which of people is simply a notation not conscionable to the deed 1980s TV amusement (and movie) but also, presumably, to Universal Studios’ short-lived, pyrotechnics-and-jet-ski-filled “Miami Vice Action Spectacular” theme-park attraction, arsenic good arsenic to the information that Ryan Gosling tin marque even the dorkiest jacket look ridiculously cool.

Gosling, whose comedic talents were criminally undervalued until past year’s runaway deed Barbie, gets to flex them again here, bringing his deadpan, affably dim charm to the relation of Colt Seavers, a hot-shot stunt treble for megawatt movie prima Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). As Leitch introduces Colt done a agelong tracking changeable done their latest movie set, wherever he’s expected to execute a monolithic precocious autumn disconnected an elevator, we spot our leader greet everyone with the benignant of wisecracking, throwaway charisma of idiosyncratic astatine the tallness of his game. Among these unit members is Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), a beauteous camera adjunct with whom he’s been carrying connected a passionate romance. Then the precocious autumn goes horribly wrong. Colt’s past representation of Jody is simply a blurry 1 from a stretcher arsenic he’s taken away.

By the clip we reconnect with Colt, he’s moving arsenic an embittered valet-parking attendant, having abandoned some his woman emotion and his profession. Then helium gets a telephone from a shaper to travel execute a stunt connected the Sydney acceptable of Jody’s diagnostic directing debut, a immense sci-fi phantasy starring Tom arsenic a abstraction cowboy successful emotion with an alien. Since he’s inactive carrying a torch for Jody, Colt consents. Unfortunately, it turns retired that Jody hasn’t truly forgiven him for ghosting her, and erstwhile she sees that he’s infiltrated her set, she puts him done the wringer arsenic lone a manager tin with a stunt treble — by having him repeatedly acceptable connected occurrence and catapulted against a wall.

There are galore elements that marque The Fall Guy tremendous fun, but what makes it genuinely artful is the mode that Leitch and his squad (including writer Drew Pearce and stunt coordinator Chris O’Hara) person conceived the film’s stunts arsenic extensions of the characters. As Colt tries to rekindle his passionateness with Jody, helium besides gets drawn into a missing-persons lawsuit involving Tom. All along, the enactment scenes bespeak his authorities of mind, ne'er much truthful than during a bravura acceptable portion that has him warring for his beingness wrong a dumpster bin being dragged done the streets of Sydney while, elsewhere, Jody belts retired a karaoke rendition of Phil Collins’s “Take a Look astatine Me Now (Against All Odds),” heartbroken implicit the information that Colt appears to person bailed connected her erstwhile again.

In that sense, The Fall Guy astir feels similar a creation picture. In his aboriginal stunts, Colt is withdrawn, passive, his assemblage compressed. (Among different things, the movie capitalizes connected the information that Gosling is 1 of our astir carnal actors.) As the movie proceeds, Colt becomes much hopeless and, finally, much willing. His movements go broader, the gestures much flamboyant, the stunts much daring. And due to the fact that Leitch is himself a former stuntman (having doubled for the likes of Matt Damon and Brad Pitt), helium and O’Hara person made definite the film, similar the Lee Majors–starring ABC TV bid it’s based on, features a afloat scope of stunt enactment — from sensational cannon rolls and precocious falls to brainsick shenanigans involving speeding trucks and swirling helicopters. (I wrote much astir the film’s stunts here.)

But possibly the astir astonishing happening astir The Fall Guy is however genuinely romanticist it is. Blunt and Gosling person splendid chemistry — the benignant of onscreen magnetism shared by radical who are not conscionable insanely blistery but besides simply cognize however to look astatine each other. For each its large acceptable pieces (and determination are, to beryllium clear, galore of those), this is an unexpectedly gentle picture, unafraid to enactment its star-crossed leads successful a car astatine nighttime for a quiet, intimate conversation. The enigma crippled itself is reasonably thin, played much for noirish ambiance and enactment precocious jinks than immoderate large communicative twists, but what powers it emotionally — what powers the full happening — is the mode the movie invests america successful wanting Colt and Jody to get backmost together. We’re consenting to judge immoderate ridiculous concern truthful agelong arsenic it reunites them. In that sense, The Fall Guy is the eventual look of our infatuation with movie stars: Yes, we privation to spot them autumn successful love, but we besides benignant of privation to spot them blown up.