BY SEB JENKINS APRIL 30, 2024
David Leitch hurls his audience through glass windows and off tall buildings in this explosive love letter to Hollywood’s unsung heroes – the stunties.
From Oppenheimer vs Barbie to teaming up in The Fall Guy, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt play out a hilarious enemies-to-lovers arch in this throwback to ‘80s Hollywood action. Inspired by the 1981 TV show of the same name, David Leitch offers up the most self-aware, sarcastic and meta action comedies to grace our screens in recent years. Setting people ablaze, rolling cars eight times over for the fun of it, and landing a 250-foot jump like it’s nothing more than a hop onto a Piccadilly train, The Fall Guy is the love letter Hollywood stunt workers have long since deserved.
SYNOPSIS
Stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) and camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) have the most Hollywood of flirty romances until a backbreaking accident forces Colt out of the game. Turning his back on the industry and his budding beau, Colt Seavers goes from flipping cars to parking them for the rich and rancid. But when Colt receives a call from famous producer, Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), he decides to hurl himself headfirst back into stunting in the name of love. There’s just one problem… Jody doesn’t want him there.
Now directing her debut film, Metalstorm, Jody is faced with the worst problem imaginable, her star has gone AWOL. Tom Ryder (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) is one of the most famous people on the planet, but the walking cliché of a lead actor has mysteriously vanished without a trace and only one person can track him down – his stuntman. As Gail Meyer so poetically puts it – “You’re a stuntman, no one is going to notice you, that’s your job.”
The further Colt Seavers throws himself down the Hollywood rabbit hole, the more he realises everything is not as it seems. And perhaps he was hand-selected for this bounty hunting role for more than his stuntman abilities. One thing is for certain, he needs to see things through to win back the love of his life and ensure that Metalstorm makes it to Comic Con’s infamous Hall H.
REVIEW
From the very first minute, The Fall Guy strikes the perfect balance between romance, comedy and an intriguing peak behind the curtain of what it’s like to be on a real-life set. Ryan Gosling ticks every one of these boxes with searing Kenergy and aplomb. While he may be known across the world as one of the most famous Hollywood hunks, Gosling is so much more. From Barbie to The Nice Guys, his comic timing is second to none in these slapstick-action environments, taking what would ordinarily be a flat or cringey line and conjuring it into his own style of quirky, chuckle-worthy wit.
Emily Blunt, fresh off the back of her Academy Award this year, is a natural-born scene-stealer and her performance in The Fall Guy is no different. Thanks to her movie role as director of Metalstorm, they even give her a megaphone to project her witticisms for all to hear. Although there has been some criticism about the believability of the Gosling-Blunt on-screen romance, The Fall Guy’s cliché-cuddling style allows us to enjoy it on a different level.
Opening the movie with the most jaw-dropping of ‘oners’ – a single take with no cuts or breaks – then later discussing adding a ‘oner’ into Metalstorm. Aaron Taylor-Johnson personifying the stereotype of a Hollywood diva who would follow his own scent to the end of the world. A five-minute bit about whether split screens are a played-out cliché in filmmaking, all the while having Blunt and Gosling split on screen. Sure, The Fall Guy is a love letter to stunt performers, but it’s more than happy to hold a mirror up to the filmmaking industry and poke fun along the way. And that is exactly what yanks it out from the crowd on a piece of highly-strung elastic!
The Fall Guy is satirical, sarcastic and downright silly. It’s a throwback to proper action and stunt work before an overreliance on CGI and blue screens. It’s a much-needed spotlight for the people who make these kinds of films happen. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun along the way!
STAR RATING
The Fall Guy releases in cinemas Thursday May 2
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