Movie review by Greg Carlson
The undeniable chemistry between stars Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling in David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy” is a significant selling point in what is surely one of the most heavily marketed movies of the year. A mashup of the rom-com and the action/crime thriller, Leitch’s latest is an inside-baseball wink and a frisky and frolicsome spree that gets a lot of mileage from its additional genre status as a movie-quoting Hollywood metanarrative. Loosely based on the 1981 to 1986 ABC series starring Lee Majors – who appears alongside co-star Heather Thomas in a brief end-credits cameo – “The Fall Guy” ditches the show’s bounty hunter angle to pump up the conflation of on-set and real life stunts performed by Gosling’s Colt Seavers.
Radiating charm, Gosling capitalizes on the Kenergy of his Oscar-nominated performance as a living doll in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.” Combining many of Ken’s positive traits with several of private investigator Holland March’s memorable mannerisms as displayed in Shane Black’s “The Nice Guys,” Gosling writes another chapter in the story of his impressive career. As characters, Ken and March are better written, deeper, and more dynamic than Seavers, whose lack of richness Gosling manages to overcome in scene after scene. An equal measure of applause belongs to Blunt, whose camera operator-turned-director Jody Moreno, like Ginger Rogers, matches her castmate, only backwards and in high heels (apologies to Beth Novey).
Filled with a number of showstoppers that take place during the production of Moreno’s feature debut, the “Mad Max”-esque science fiction epic “Metalstorm,” “The Fall Guy” leans on Leitch’s visual sensibilities to overcome the flimsy dialogue and uninspired plotting of Drew Pearce’s screenplay, which is easily the movie’s weakest link. When Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s A-lister Tom Ryder mysteriously disappears, Seavers, previously sidelined by a serious work-related injury, returns to stunt crew duty hoping to rekindle his romantic relationship with Moreno. Instead, Colt quickly becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Fisticuffs and car chases ensue.
Anytime Blunt and Gosling interact, including a great split screen scene inspired by “Pillow Talk,” the pulse of “The Fall Guy” spikes with excitement and possibility. The fragile reasoning that keeps the one-time sweethearts apart makes as much sense as the lengths to which producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) goes to get Seavers to locate her missing lead actor. And with the exception of the quiet scenes between Colt and Jody, which are so good that some lines showcased in the trailer didn’t even make the final cut, we’re not supposed to take seriously any of this ridiculousness.
Leitch, a former stunt performer and coordinator who doubled for Brad Pitt five times, incorporates an in-universe plea for a long overdue Oscar category to recognize the work of the talented professionals who risk (and sometime lose) their lives in the course of making films that continue to dazzle and delight viewers searching for the vicarious adrenaline rush of a perfectly executed practical effect. “The Fall Guy” even manages to squeeze in genuine concerns about the encroachment of A.I. and the dangers it portends. Those two considerations, though only fleetingly addressed, land with an explosive bang.