Review: The Fall Guy

Director:  David Leitch

Stars:  Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Winston Duke

David Leitch knows a thing or two about stunts. He came up the hard way doubling the stars in The Matrix and Fight Club, before taking on more technical roles directing action on the likes of The Wolverine and Jurassic World. He’s navigated a path through the Hollywood system that few ‘fall guys’ have managed, co-directing John Wick with fellow stunt veteran Chad Stahelski before breaking out for his own run of solo features, none of which would exist without those men and women who’ll take a pay cheque to roll a car, dive through a window or leap off a building.

His latest effort for multiplexes is a very loose retooling of the Lee Majors TV show of the early ’80s, in which a stunt man named Colt Seavers moonlights as a bounty hunter in-between shoots. Leitch – a vocal champion of the craft and one of the loudest calling for greater recognition from The Academy – uses this vehicle as a 2-hour ad campaign for Oscar eligibility. It’s an argument that comes from the heart, and its pretty convincing. Up to a point.

Continuing his present preference for amiable himbo roles – light work that the man knows he has the charisma for – Ryan Gosling is just Colt. He’s the film’s greatest asset for sure, guiding us through an overlong and occasionally roughshod yarn with a wan smile and a thatch of tussled hair. Colt’s on a downer since an accident on set broke his back and left him bereft. Not just of his career, but of his burgeoning prospects with fellow crew member Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). 18 months later, Jody’s been elevated to feature director for a dumb sci-fi opera named Metalstorm shooting in Sydney, and her meddlesome producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) wants Colt back to do what Colt does best.

The opening stretch documenting this strained relationship is the movie’s strongest, and it’s never better than whenever Gosling and Blunt are left sparring on screen together. An awkward – and very public – set reunion is among the funniest and best written sequences in the movie. Things fall apart a bit, however, when Colt becomes embroiled in a frankly uninteresting search for Jody’s missing lead, preening A-lister Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Somewhat by necessity this development separates Gosling and Blunt for the majority of the picture, and the best aspect of The Fall Guy evaporates.

The undercooked mystery does give Gosling permission to flex comedically, and allows Leitch to roll out various action set pieces as approached from a stunt player’s perspective. So we get some good fight sequences, and a broad range of situations in which Colt is resentfully compelled to take tumbles not for the camera, but to keep himself alive. Again, the highlights come early, however. Drugged and dressed like a lemon sorbet, Colt’s deranged tussle with a bunch of heavies at a nighttime soiree is Leitch at his most visually maximalist. People are gonna love the unicorns, too.

A few too many elements let the whole down, however. For one, the script could’ve used a few more passes, and the Hollywood tentpole indulgence for running adlib takes too far really announces itself against the more obviously-written material. Taylor-Johnson and Waddingham are successful bad guys. Too successful. Both craft deeply obnoxious personas. Should’ve been an either/or type deal. Spending time with the both of them is simply grating. On that note, Winston Duke is underused as Metalstorm‘s stunt co-ordinator Dan. He and Gosling fit well together, and there’s something of a missed opportunity there.

And then there’s Leitch’s all-in-the-camera stunt manifesto itself, which comes from a place of sincerity, but feels watered down and compromised when The Fall Guy so clearly uses okay-I-guess CG to flesh out its more technically difficult action scenes. It’s hard to bitch about studio shortcutting and then deploy it this heavily all in the same breath. But it’s a Hollywood action romcom, so who cares I guess. The movie doesn’t know when to stop, either. Having teed up a running (maybe knowing) gag about third act problems, climax fatigue sets in once we’re back on set for the destruction derby finale(s).

So, a mixed bag. But probably the best of Leitch’s solo directing efforts (honestly, what a garbage run), even if it’s largely Gosling and Blunt bailing him out.

Oh, and one more thing, and props for this. The Fall Guy turns out to have an unexpectedly soft underbelly, revealing a moving and empowering through-line on male mental health. On acknowledging pain and admitting to it. On feeling brave enough to say “I’m not okay”. This, too, feels like an element that comes from the heart. Maybe that’s why it not only blindsides, but works so well.