The Fall Guy review – Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt dazzle in delightful action comedy
Before The Fall Guy even premiered at the SXSW film festival on Tuesday, there were boos in the audience – not for the film or stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, all staggeringly delightful, but for a preview of the festival’s tech conference, touting the promise of AI as a “great equalizer” that makes us “more human”. (Lol.) How funny, and unintentionally pointed, for such a statement to air before a film that serves as a joyful testament to the people who make movies, and particularly the tricky, bombastic art of human stunts. Even funnier that The Fall Guy, written by Drew Pearce and directed by Bullet Train’s David Leitch, itself takes some swings at AI in the script; it’s not really a spoiler to say that its deepfakes aren’t being used for good.
The Fall Guy, based on the 80s TV series, is an utterly charming, unpretentious rebuttal to the encroachment of digital effects in life and film (all due respect to VFX artists). It’s a celebration of blockbuster movies and their illusions of grandeur made by dozens and dozens of people working in concert, mostly below the line, and specifically the underappreciated work of stunt doubles. It’s also just a consistently good time, two hours of zingers with impeccable timing, two bona fide movie stars with palpable chemistry, several enjoyably meta send-ups of the business and, of course, plenty of crazy stunts.
Gosling, newly minted Oscars pop star and certified charm machine, is in peak comedy leading man form as Colt
Seavers, a movie stunt veteran sidelined by an on-set injury that derailed his confidence. Jaded and hiding out in LA as a valet for a Mexican restaurant, Colt is reluctantly called back into action by big-time producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) for the beleaguered Australian shoot of Metalstorm, a Comic-Con aiming sci-fi flick. The promise, and the problem, is that Metalstorm is directed by Jody (Blunt), the woman Colt loves and whom he shame-ghosted after his injury, leaving her hurt, confused and bitter.
The secondary problem is that Jody’s star and Colt’s longtime double, global action hero Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), is suspiciously missing, threatening the studio to pull the plug on her debut film and lifelong dream. In an attempt to save her film, Colt searches for him in Sydney and, lo and behold, finds his stunt work transcending the boundaries of set as shady characters and intrigue abound. In other words, the action figure version of Ken.
Leitch, a stuntman for over 20 years (at one point doubling for Brad Pitt) guides the film with a clear affection for movie sets and expertise in the trade. The Fall Guy offers an enjoyable exhibit of the stunt staples: pyrotechnics, rigging, trained dogs, car chases, car crashes, dummy weapons,