The Fall Guy - A Solid/Fun Enough Time at the Movies
Stuntman Colt Seavers (played by Ryan Gosling) joins a big budget action film directed by his ex girlfriend, Jody Moerno (played by Emily Blunt) after recovering from a fatal accident that made him quit doing stunts for little over a year, when he then gets involved with a mysterious case that will bigger to handle than any sunt he has done in his life.
Now The Fall Guy is loosely based off a tv show of the same name that lasted from 1981-1986 (which I haven’t seen btw), and going into this film I had low expectations. Despite my love for both Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, the film didn’t look too convincing based on the trailers and overall look of it, and even though I didn’t hate director David Leitch’s last film Bullet Train, it wasn’t strong enough for me to get excited for this film. But as someone who goes and watches anything that Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are in regardless of its quality, I was willing to give this film a shot and hopefully some form of a fun time watching it. After watching it, I got exactly what I hoped out of it, as The Fall Guy was a fun time at the movies.
There’s two key factors that makes this film work in the way it did. The first being is that its a love letter to stunts in action films and the stunt teams that make these stunts come to life. Because they don’t get the recognition they deserve and it’s great to see a film dedicated to them. The results being a reflection of that love is shown through the way David Leitch directed the action sequences that shows off those incredible stunts, the way the film is looked aided by Leitch’s frequent cinematographer Jonathan Sela being well shot and well grated (even if it looks a little too polished at times), to the way action sequences are set up and staged that create some really fun sequences in the process, and even having a nice montage that shows off the many stunts performed in this film by the stunt team (Ryan also did some of his own stunts as well) during the credits. You can tell how much this film loves stunts in films and wants to them in every opportunity they can, and if this isn’t a sign that more award shows show honor them, I don’t know what will.
The second key factor to this film’s success is the star power of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt and their chemistry. Now there’s no denying that Ryan Gosling is a natural treasure that comes from the Hollywood circle and every role he’s done bring so much charm, wit, depth, nuance, and amazement to it all, and between this and last year with his role as Ken in Barbie, the world has finally seen his comedic chops that has mostly been going unnoticed in films like Lars and the Real Girl, and The Nice Guys (which I’m still upset it bombed, but I digress). Emily Blunt I think as a actress kinda doesn’t get a whole a lot of appreciation despite being in a range of great works such as Sicario, Edge of Tomorrow, and last year’s Oppenheimer, so it was also great to see her pull off some the fun and comedic edge she has shown in films The Devil’s Wear Prada, and Mary Poppins Returns in this. I mean so much of this film would fail entirely if it weren’t for Gosling and Blunt bring their all into their individual characters to make them likable and enjoyable on their own (even if they weren’t the most fleshed out characters), and making their chemistry very believable in the process both during the comedic moments and the more romantic moments to make us invested to them throughout this film.
Obviously there are more things about this film that makes it work than just the two key elements. The rest of the cast like Hannah Waddingham, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Winston Duke, and Stephanie Hsu all given really fun energy and charm to their characters and performances (tho the latter doesn’t have a lot of screen time sadly), the action sequences are fun an enjoyable, especially within a big set piece in the last act, there’s some clever tricks and editing styles that are owe to the filmmaking process, and the humor is really solid for the most part. The highlight jokes consisting of a joke involving the film Thelma & Louise, a running joke about a french dog, a parody of a certain film that just came out with a cameo that works so well, and of course the “All Too Well” bit that hits way too much at home in the sense that I too listen and cry while listening to Taylor Swift and her music as well. I feel you Ryan, I fell you.
But there are some aspects of the film that hinder it from being truly great. For instance, while I do think a good amount of the humor works fine and dandy, there are times where the film tries way too hard to be funny that it doesn’t work it out as it think it does, which most of which comes from being too meta at some points and some jokes that I don’t what they were thinking when they came up with it (most notably with a distasteful joke about Johnny Deep and Amber Heard). Also the film is definitely predictable when it comes to the plot and the whole mystery portion and who’s involved in it that makes the plot more convoluted in the process once the mystery is solved. Not to mention the mystery portion isn’t quite as interesting as the stuff with Gosling and Blunt in my opinion (and even then it does involved in some cliches in romantic comedies like the misunderstanding stuff that I’m not a huge fan of).
Plus while the action sequences are really fun, I can’t help but feel like the way some of them (particularly a highway chase in the middle of the film) look a little too artificial and too clean for my own liking. Not to say it looks bad, I mean they look better than a good amount of action blockbusters today (cough The Gray Man cough), it just that some of the clean look removes many of the grit and hard dirty look that they could have and make me a little more invested into the action sequences in the process. I’m not saying they need to look like the action in say Ambulance or Mad Max Fury Road, but making them less polished and more grit would have been nice.
So overall, The Fall Guy fits into the template of what a fun summer blockbuster should look like. Providing on charismatic leads who give it their all in Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, mostly solid humor, fun action sequences, an interesting plot to get the audience invested in, and offers different genres that can be accessible for different viewers looking something to invested in. It’s of course not the greatest film imaginable, but it’s the type of film where you can tell everyone involved both on and off screen had such a fun time making and want to share that love into a film that not only calls back to a genre of films you don’t see too often anymore (the big budget action romantic comedy), but also as a love letter to stunts in action films and the people who made it all happen. And I think that’s enough to make it an enjoyable blockbuster to watch and have a good time with.
Oh and one more thing. I mentioned this in my Letterboxd review that this film had line “Nihilism is a sexy bacon” that showed up midway in it, and all I can think about for the rest of the film is how to incorporate that line in another Taylor Swift song “Anti-Hero”. Something like this: “Sometimes I feel like Nihilism is a sexy bacon, and I’m a monster on the hill”. Hopefully that works.