The Fall Guy

Grade: A-

Challengers and Civil War have been the two best movies playing in theaters right now, but both are quite intense, and often not the easiest to sit through. I yearned for one that was up to the same quality, and had the entertainment factor. We have that with The Fall Guy, which will be the most gosh darn blang FUN you’ll have at the movies until…it leaves theaters. 30 years ago, my parents frequently listened to a CD set called “Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music.” The Fall Guy could be “action for people who hate action.” I loved it.

The film makes an extremely deliberate, intentional point of recognizing the stunt artists. In a short pre-show clip, director David Leitch and star Ryan Gosling call it a love letter to the stunt community – the unsung heroes who take the falls, punches, shots, and beyond for the stars, but don’t receive enough credit. That has been rectified here. Leitch’s credits include Bullet Train, a Fast & Furious spinoff, Deadpool 2, and its family friendly version, Once Upon a Deadpool. He knows action.

Gosling plays Colt Seavers, one of the best stunt men in the business. He can fall, get set on fire, get hit by a car, do a car roll…he’s game for anything. He’s been a double for big-time star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson from Bullet Train and Nocturnal Animals) on several movies. Colt breaks his back when a fall goes terribly wrong, and it takes him out of the business. 18 months later (he’s working as a valet parker at a restaurant by this point), he is lured back in when he receives a phone call from producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham from Ted Lasso, energetic and ebullient as ever). He is about to say no when he hears that Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) is directing. She was a camera operator on that last film he did a year and a half ago. Colt and Jody got it on a few times on set, and it’s a crush he never got over.

When he arrives on location, Gail tells him in confidence that Tom Ryder has been MIA lately. He’s gotten caught up in some shady activity with unsavory people, and she needs Colt’s help to find him and bring him back to set. Colt finds a dead body on ice in the bathtub, and has to inform Gail that Tom is dead.

The Fall Guy shows spectacular technique and mastery in how self-aware it is. It constantly winks at the audience and makes fun of itself, often beating us to the punch with the jabs at its own expense. If certain plot points are convoluted and detail-heavy, chances are characters will have dialogue about that very thing. Blunt and Gosling look great, and infuse more heart, spirit, and drive than they did in their recent Oscar-nominated performances. The fights are as coruscating as they come, the humor in the “book scenes” is just as strong, and the soundtrack utilizes well-known songs in some of the most effective ways since the highway to the danger zone took our breath away. If you are worried that this is nothing but testosterone and strutting and patriarchy stuff, have no fear. Women get their celebration moments here too, via a late-act scene with Blunt’s character.

At the end, if you have the same nagging question I did, stay through all the credit cookies. It’s the last thing we see, but what I wanted to know gets answered. I left The Fall Guy on Cloud 9, and I’m still buzzing. You will have your own favorite action sequence or bit you’ll want to tell people about. My favorite? The gasoline in the mouth trick. Wait’ll you see that.

Grade: A-