Gosling and Blunt give ‘The Fall Guy’ its sauce
Some of you may remember the early ’80s TV show “The Fall Guy,” starring Lee Majors and Heather Thomas. The hit show ran five seasons, featuring the pitfalls and pratfalls of a stuntperson undertaking various odd jobs and adventures. Well, forty years later some people in Hollywood felt the time was right to revive that particular IP with this summer’s “The Fall Guy,” starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, who just last year went head to head on the same playdate with “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” respectively. Now they’ve joined forces, and their easy chemistry elevates what might have been standard Hollywood fare with some cleverer-than-usual stunts.Gosling plays Colt Seavers (a stuntperson’s name if there ever was one), an experienced vet in his industry. After what should have been a routine stunt goes awry, he gets injured and has to take a year off to recuperate, and then doesn’t return to stuntwork at all, until he gets guilted into returning by a producer he works with often (played by Hannah Waddingham). Colt was always the best stuntperson to double for megastar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and he is needed on set or else the movie they’re currently shooting might fall apart. Complicating matters, but enticing Colt further, is that the film Ryder is currently shooting is the directorial debut of Jody (Blunt), who Colt was falling madly in love with at the time of his accident.
Shady characters
Of course, things are not what they seem, as when Colt shows up on set to work, several things become clear: Jody was not aware he was coming, nor is she welcoming to the idea, and also, Tom Ryder is missing, having taken up with some shady characters. So aside from being a stuntperson (and a very good one at that; Colt’s first job for the movie within the movie is a Guinness record-making series of rolls in a car), he’s also got to be a bit of a private investigator in a missing-persons case.Director David Leitch’s last offering, “Bullet Train,” also featured a combination of action and comedy, and here he is reunited with Drew Pearce, his screenwriter from “Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.” A former stuntperson himself, he has made sure that “The Fall Guy” features some elaborate stunt sequences the likes of which we’ve not seen in a major Hollywood blockbuster: using a camera-rig crane on a pickup to slingshot onto a helicopter, for example. It’s a veritable love letter to the art and craft of stuntwork, a series of examples of why there should be an Oscar category for it.Supporting players
Other supporting players include Winston Duke, Teresa Palmer and Stephanie Hsu. They all get to enjoy a cool action/fight scene of their own, Blunt included. They also get their share of barbs and quips in this fast-paced action-comedy. Some of the jokes land, others are a little strained, but the meta-ness of the plot gives some cover. What’s satisfying is Gosling and Blunt’s rapport. Seeing them resist each other is endearing, and the little cracks in their scenes let their characters’ defenses down.
The movie is a little long, some of the pacing and rhythm of scenes could have been tightened, but “The Fall Guy” is a perfectly fine way to while away the time in a theater. Gosling and Blunt are an expected delight, together and apart, in this jovial throwback to ’80s summer movie fare.
