The Fall Guy (2024) Review: An Entertaining Crowd-Pleaser and a Love Letter to Hollywood Stunts
From co-directed with Chad Stahelski in the first John Wick to going solo in Atomic Blonde, David Leitch sure knows how to stage propulsive action set pieces meant to be experienced on the big screen. But his last three works — Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and Bullet Train — saw the director trying to stretch his primary action-movie expertise by incorporating elements of comedy, well, to largely mixed results.
His much-anticipated latest movie, The Fall Guy continues Leitch’s love for action and comedy genres. It’s already received overwhelmingly positive responses after its world premiere at SXSW in March and the trailers look promising too, making me believe this would be Leitch’s most entertaining action comedy to date. The good news is that he does deliver, even though the movie has a fair share of flaws but I get to that later.
The Fall Guy gets off to a bouncy start with KISS’ catchy disco-rock 1979 hit “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” playing in the background. It gives the movie the right kinetic vibe, especially with the song’s signature guitar riff followed by the stunt montage of Leitch’s past works. We are soon introduced to Ryan Gosling’s Colt Seavers, a stuntman who’s been doubled for the famous action star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, giving a perfectly arrogant supporting turn). He also dates Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), an ambitious first-time director, where they work together on the film set.
Long story short, a stunt goes wrong and Colt’s career takes a downfall, both literally and figuratively. He has since been laying low after recovery and works as a car jockey. It wasn’t until Gail (Hannah Waddingham) gave him a call and convinced Colt to get back into action as a stuntman. He hesitates at first before finally agreeing to it after finding out the director for the big-budget sci-fi romance of Metalstorm is his ex-lover, Jody.
There’s more: Gail wants him to track down Tom, who has mysteriously disappeared. As Colt does his own investigation, he also tries to solve his personal matter — mending his broken relationship with Jody.
The Fall Guy sees the director meshing everything in a single package: action, comedy, mystery and romance. I have to admit the movie overstretches itself too much under the bloated 126-minute running time. Some of the more talky moments between Colt and Jody feel forced while the whole find-the-missing-Tom-Ryder mystery part suffers from wobbly storytelling. I was hoping the latter would bring back The Nice Guys-type vibe since it also happens to star Gosling in that underrated buddy comedy. That is if only Leitch, working from Drew Pearce’s screenplay, had the flair of Shane Black’s filmmaking mojo.
And yet, for all the shortcomings in this movie, Leitch still deserves praise for giving us the irresistible on-screen chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. They are both likeable and share some of the movie’s funniest moments, notably the indirect confrontation regarding their relationship in front of the cast and crew on the set of Metalstorm and the truck scene revolving around Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well”. Individually speaking, Blunt has her significant moment that I enjoy seeing her letting loose while singing karaoke of a certain Phil Collins’ classic love song.
The movie also gets an extra boost from the aforementioned Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham and Winston Duke, where the latter plays Colt’s best friend and stunt coordinator who loves to quote famous movie lines from Rocky to The Last of the Mohicans.
Since The Fall Guy pays tribute to Hollywood stunts in general and the below-the-line crew working on the film set, most of the action scenes are done in an old-fashioned way. All blood, sweat and tears that go into practical stunts are heavily emphasised in this movie, albeit with some spotty CGI. Notable set pieces like the dumpster truck chase sequence, the psychedelic hand-to-hand combat in the nightclub and the action-packed third act from the flying car to the helicopter jump are worth mentioning here.
Leitch even has fun referencing and parodying popular movies in some scenes from John Wick to Dune and yes, even the TV series Miami Vice. Remember to stay back for the movie’s behind-the-scenes stunt reel during the end credits and look out for Lee Majors’ cameo appearance, the original lead star of the 1980s TV series of the same name.
