'The Fall Guy' A Review

The Fall Guy is an action romcom about stuntman Colt Seavers(Ryan Gosling) who doubles for the famous Tom Ryder(Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and has a burgeoning relationship with camera operator Jody Moreno(Emily Blunt). At the start of the film Colt and Jody flirt on set but their relationship is cut short by an accident. A year later Jody is directing her first film, a scifi action romance Metalstorm, and shady producer Gail Meyer(Hannah Waddingham) brings Colt out of retirement to work on the film after Tom disappears.  

Gosling and Blunt are in top form. Their chemistry is electric and both give Movie Star caliber performances, necessary in this movie-about-movies where they both need to be both emotionally real and funny but also big and integrate that around large action set pieces. Its wonderful and the blend of tone is successful primarily because Blunt and Gosling make it so. Neither character has a ton of depth on the page, and quite frankly they don't need it, their performances are so purely magnetic, their personalities so charged and engaging its a delight. Waddingham is great as the Diet Coke guzzling producer/puppet-master and although in a briefer role Taylor-Johnson gives his funnest and most compelling role in years as the unhinged ego-driven megastar. Winston Duke, as the stunt coordinator, is underused but still wonderful to see, and the rest of the supporting cast are all good and game and help to create maybe not a deep film but a spectacularly entertaining one.

A love letter to stunt work not 7 minutes goes by without a stunt sequence and they are all made so lovingly, so thrillingly that alone makes this worth a watch. The soundtrack is pitch perfect and exciting. The costuming, especially those pieces for Metalstorm, are so playful and well done. The production, all around is just 10/10. The action is stupendous, the romance pulls the heartstrings, the comedy hits. Its tonally ambitious and they pull it off. At times the plotting is a bit convoluted, a bit convenient, but ultimately those strains are easy to ignore because the pacing is break neck and you know there is a stunt or a joke or a heartfelt moment coming next that will land. Not a perfect film but pretty damn close.

Prioritizes fun above all else, a quality lacking in many recent Hollywood blockbusters.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Don't Miss It.