The Fall Guy opens in theaters Friday, May 3. This review is based on a screening at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival.
A love letter to those who die for a living collides head first with a goofy romance in The Fall Guy. The film discards the bounty-hunting premise of its primetime source material, but retains protagonist Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), a stuntman whose specialized training comes in handy when he gets roped into solving a mystery. Despite being awkwardly strung together at times, The Fall Guy has flair, and it oozes star power. It’s wanting in some regards, but for an action-comedy that takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the film industry, its charisma and chemistry are just enough.
Gosling has delivered hilarious performances before – in The Nice Guys, The Big Short, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and most recently Barbie – but The Fall Guy might be his most accomplished comedic work yet. His dry, matter-of-face voiceover introduces us to Colt’s picture-perfect fling with camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) – which they keep on the down-low since they’re co-workers – and to his job risking life and limb for obnoxious playboy superstar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). But when an on-set accident effectively ends his career, Colt retreats into self-loathing and cuts off all contact with everyone in his life, including Jody.
Eighteen months later, he’s forced out of retirement for a Ryder production, when the brash superstar’s producing partner Gail (Hannah Waddingham) convinces him to fly out to Sydney to work on Jody’s directorial debut, the apocalyptic sci-fi opera Metalstorm. However, this turns out to be a ruse by Waddingham’s cunning, grinning exec, because it turns out Ryder has gone missing, and Gail needs Colt’s help to track him down – a rabbit hole that gets much deeper, and much more complicated, to the point that the script even calls out its own winding plot. (Unsurprising, considering director David Leitch’s experience breaking the fourth-wall in Deadpool 2.)
This is a film keenly aware of its flaws – an on-set writer even suggests solving Metalstorm’s third act issues through self-aware commentary, which Jody dismisses as an easy out. And while this doesn’t quite solve The Fall Guy’s problems of occasional confusion or loss of tension, it does help the audience take them a little less seriously. Much more to the movie’s point: Colt and Jody’s awkward reunion leads to some rip-roaring scenarios where the director’s bitterness over being abandoned translates as torturous re-takes of dangerous stunts to put Colt through the wringer. It would feel downright mean if it weren’t so affectionate toward the art of Hollywood stunts, and so farcically presented, with extras in elaborate alien and space cowboy getups eavesdropping on their public confrontations.
Minus the occasional third-act sequence assisted by janky CGI, the stunts are, for the most part, practical, with a strong focus on technique and process. Before co-directing the first John Wick, Leitch was in Colt’s line of work for several years, so a genuine adoration for the craft permeates every scene. While Leitch is arguably the less accomplished of the original John Wick duo – his colleague Chad Stahelski helmed the groundbreaking Wick sequels, while he made safer and arguably lesser works like Bullet Train and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw – the action in The Fall Guy has a sense of fun and fluidity befitting its premise. It doesn’t camouflage the stunt people standing in for other actors, but this deepens our appreciation of the artifice, given the dangers involved. It’s a Russian nesting doll of staged mayhem: When Gosling’s double Logan Holladay – who also plays Colt’s stunt assistant, checking on him before and after risky vehicular acts – performs a disorienting eight-and-a-half barrel rolls in an SUV, he’s standing in for an actor who’s playing a character who’s standing in for an actor.
The insider nature of the jokes and setting is a joy for anyone who’s ever worked on a movie set; The Fall Guy also captures the romantic and sexual chemistry that often sizzles between below-the-line crew., But even folks who’ve never been within a thousand miles of a Universal Studios tour will find much to delight in, like all the movie quotes that make up the vocabulary of Colt’s infectiously-enthusiastic friend and stunt supervisor, Dan (Winston Duke). The biggest laughs , however, come down to Gosling’s impeccable combination of dizzy sincerity and debonair charm. Though let it not go unsaid: Blunt is a fantastic straight-man for him to play off of. She hides a genuine, exasperated pain behind her hardened exterior – albeit one that gives way to temptation and the desire to forgive. Together, they light the screen on fire with classic screwball energy.
Yet the ball is routinely dropped when it comes to constructing scenes for Colt and Jody or capturing their interpersonal dynamics. There are visual gags aplenty (like a conversation about the use of split-screen that plays out in split-screen itself), and Leitch is adept at replicating on-set energy through bustling long takes. But when it comes to slowing down and capturing one-on-one conversations, both dramatic and comedic, the editing is all over the place, disrupting the rhythms of reaction shots and emphatic deliveries. It actively works against Blunt and Goslingin certain scenes.
Thankfully, Gosling’s solo sleuthing sees the heartthrob at his absolute funniest. His pitch-perfect timing elevates even the lowest-hanging fruit, and he maintains a wild physicality in action-comedy scenes, whether kicking ass in a dazzling, drug-fueled sequence reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim, or gracefully pratfalling his way through a chase, maintaining a straight face all the while. Any potential Pink Panther reboot would do well to consider him for the role of Inspector Clouseau.
The Fall Guy’s ode to stunt work (and to filmmaking in general) keeps it good-natured; it’s hard not to adore some aspects of the movie, even when it falters. A key fight scene involving an entire stunt crew could’ve used more setup – which is to say, any setup at all – but while it never reaches the level of hilariously rousing, it’s amusing enough, with hints of admiration for the industry’s unsung heroes. In fact, the anonymous nature of the work itself, and the way stunt people and below-the-line workers are anonymized in favor of movie stars, plays a key part in Colt’s own emotional journey. It allows Gosling to flex his well-known dramatic chops as well, en route to a cinematic romance of Movie Star ™ proportions. The Fall Guy doesn’t always work, but when it does, it works like a charm.
