I’m a sucker for a good Ryan Gosling comedy. The Nice Guys (with Russell Crowe) was one of the most underrated comedies of the past decade, and Barbie… I mean, he got an Oscar nomination for it. His work is always a bit absurd, unexpected and always incredibly funny. Same goes here for his new film, The Fall Guy, opposite the always great Emily Blunt.
Based on the 1980’s show of the same name (but with little resemblance to that show except for the stuntman angle), Gosling plays Colt Seavers, one of the top stuntmen in Hollywood. After an on-set accident that almost kills him, he quits the business and ghosts his girlfriend Jody (Blunt). When he gets a call from Big Time movie producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) asking him to come back and stunt double for huge Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), he wants nothing to do with it. But when she tells him that Jody is directing the would-be blockbuster, he quickly hops on a plane to Australia.
When he arrives, it turns out that things aren’t on the up and up. Meyer informs him that Ryder has disappeared and to help save Jody’s film, he needs to find him asap. Soon, there’s a double-cross, murder and some pretty cool stunts.
The plot is ridiculous but fun and the chemistry between Gosling and Blunt is undeniable. Jody is no damsel-in-distress, she’s clearly his equal. And the verbal sparring between the two is entertaining.
Johnson’s Ryder is surrounded by sycophants and he’s clearly the product of what that brings, he literally thinks he can do no wrong. One really funny thing if you pay close attention: in the film that they’re shooting, Metal Storm, Ryder plays a post-apocalyptic cowboy and the voice he’s using for that character is a dead-on impression of Matthew McConaughey.
Written by Drew Pearce and directed by David Leitch, a former stuntman himself, the big set pieces fit the bill. They’re not spectacular but work well with the story they’re telling. They’re not trying to cram some nonsense that doesn’t make sense.
At a little over 2 hours long though, it definitely could have been trimmed down by 20 minutes or so. There were scenes that felt long and some of the fight sequences could have been trimmed down. But don’t let that stop you from checking it out because this is a perfect (almost) summer movie.
