This review was originally published on March 12, 2024. We’re republishing it as The Fall Guy enters theaters starting May 3.
Look, there’s no way I can be objective about any film that features a song about how there’s still no Oscar for Best Stunts, so I won’t even try. David Leitch’s The Fall Guy, an action-comedy mystery romance set in the world of stunt professionals, is an act of pure movie love, mixing and matching genres while tossing off in-jokes and references to its illustrious (and not-so-illustrious) forebears. It’s the kind of picture that can casually use a Miami Vice Stunt Team jacket as a plot device — which of course is a reference not just to the hit 1980s TV show (and movie) but also, presumably, to Universal Studios’ short-lived, pyrotechnics-and-jet-ski-filled “Miami Vice Action Spectacular” theme-park attraction, as well as to the fact that Ryan Gosling can make even the dorkiest jacket look ridiculously cool.
Gosling, whose comedic talents were criminally undervalued until last year’s runaway hit Barbie, gets to flex them again here, bringing his deadpan, affably dim charm to the role of Colt Seavers, a hot-shot stunt double for megawatt movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). As Leitch introduces Colt through a long tracking shot through their latest movie set, where he’s supposed to perform a massive high fall off an elevator, we see our hero greet everyone with the kind of wisecracking, throwaway charisma of someone at the height of his game. Among these crew members is Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), a beautiful camera assistant with whom he’s been carrying on a passionate romance. Then the high fall goes horribly wrong. Colt’s last image of Jody is a blurry one from a stretcher as he’s taken away.
By the time we reconnect with Colt, he’s working as an embittered valet-parking attendant, having abandoned both his lady love and his profession. Then he gets a call from a producer to come perform a stunt on the Sydney set of Jody’s feature directing debut, a huge sci-fi fantasy starring Tom as a space cowboy in love with an alien. Since he’s still carrying a torch for Jody, Colt consents. Unfortunately, it turns out that Jody hasn’t really forgiven him for ghosting her, and when she sees that he’s infiltrated her set, she puts him through the wringer as only a director can with a stunt double — by having him repeatedly set on fire and catapulted against a wall.
There are many elements that make The Fall Guy enormous fun, but what makes it genuinely artful is the way that Leitch and his team (including writer Drew Pearce and stunt coordinator Chris O’Hara) have conceived the film’s stunts as extensions of the characters. As Colt tries to rekindle his passion with Jody, he also gets drawn into a missing-persons case involving Tom. All along, the action scenes reflect his state of mind, never more so than during a bravura set piece that has him fighting for his life inside a dumpster bin being dragged through the streets of Sydney while, elsewhere, Jody belts out a karaoke rendition of Phil Collins’s “Take a Look at Me Now (Against All Odds),” heartbroken over the fact that Colt appears to have bailed on her once again.
In that sense, The Fall Guy almost feels like a dance picture. In his early stunts, Colt is withdrawn, passive, his body compressed. (Among other things, the film capitalizes on the fact that Gosling is one of our most physical actors.) As the movie proceeds, Colt becomes more desperate and, finally, more willing. His movements become broader, the gestures more flamboyant, the stunts more daring. And because Leitch is himself a former stuntman (having doubled for the likes of Matt Damon and Brad Pitt), he and O’Hara have made sure the film, like the Lee Majors–starring ABC TV series it’s based on, features a full range of stunt work — from sensational cannon rolls and high falls to crazy shenanigans involving speeding trucks and swirling helicopters. (I wrote more about the film’s stunts here.)
But maybe the most surprising thing about The Fall Guy is how genuinely romantic it is. Blunt and Gosling have splendid chemistry — the kind of onscreen magnetism shared by people who are not just insanely hot but also simply know how to look at each other. For all its big set pieces (and there are, to be clear, many of those), this is an unexpectedly gentle picture, unafraid to put its star-crossed leads in a car at night for a quiet, intimate conversation. The mystery plot itself is fairly thin, played more for noirish atmosphere and action high jinks than any great narrative twists, but what powers it emotionally — what powers the whole thing — is the way the film invests us in wanting Colt and Jody to get back together. We’re willing to accept any ridiculous situation so long as it reunites them. In that sense, The Fall Guy is the ultimate expression of our infatuation with movie stars: Yes, we want to see them fall in love, but we also kind of want to see them blown up.
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