The Fall Guy Review: Fall For Gosling’s Charm

The Fall Guy Star Cast/ Actors: Ryan Gosling as Colt Seavers, Emily Blunt as Jody Moreno, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Tom Ryder, Hannah Waddingham as Gail Meyer.

The Fall Guy Director: David Leitch

The Fall Guy Release Date: May 03, 2024

The Fall Guy Available On: Netflix OTT Platform

The Fall Guy Available On: Theatrical Release (likely to be released on Amazon Prime)

The Fall Guy Released/ Available In Languages: English and Hindi

The Fall Guy Runtime: 125 minutes

The Fall Guy Critic Review:

Three points in its favour:

An old-fashioned, happy-ending romance with comic flourishes, hasn’t come around for a long time.

Director David Leitch, one-time stunt performer for big names like Brad Pitt, has his heart in the right place when he makes a hat-tip to the doubles who perform all those death-defying action moves in Hollywood movies.

Three, Ryan Gosling. His charm full on.

It’s fashionable to call them ‘Barbenheimer’ when Ryan Gosling of Barbie and Emily Blunt of Oppenheimer, two big movies that were released on the same day last year, come together for David Leitch.

Well, it is a big deal. Especially when Leitch, taking off from the TV show The Fall Guy (popular in the 1980s) goes full throttle with the action that has doubles at their riskiest best, with a greenroom view of what goes on backstage. And Ryan Gosling brings his ‘Kenergy’ to the stunts.

It’s old-fashioned all the way. Superstars are arrogant jerks, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a super-jerk, his body double Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is super cool. Whether a high-risk stunt or taking Ryder’s taunts on the chin, Colt has a casualness that says, ‘Chill, no offence taken, bro’. Camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) and Colt are a couple. Until a stunt goes wrong, Colt licks his wounds in isolation and cuts off Jody from his life.

That, of course, is just the beginning. Producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) traces Colt and entices him to Australia where Jody has got her big break as director.

It’s not just another assignment to do high-octane jumps and car rolls, though a record eight-and-a-half car rolls does get filmed. It’s a real-life assignment to find missing Tom Ryder before the studio pulls out of the project. A ‘Save Jody’ assignment without Jody knowing what’s going on. And maybe, win her back too.

Think of a worn laundry list and Leitch (with writer Drew Pearce) has every item on it ticked off. Silly humour like “flingette” (for a very brief fling), Ryder’s obsession with post-its all over the place, a drug-seller with leopard tattoos on his head, a spiked drink that has Colt seeing unicorns until he sobers down, alien props from Jody’s movie popping up here and there, a split-screen describing a split screen sequence, it’s so in-your-face that it sometimes falls flat.

Everything is calibrated. Even the cast – one Asian face (Stephanie Hsu), one coloured good guy (Winston Duke), one cute animal too (a dog that responds to commands only in French before attacking a man’s crotch).

Nostalgia and movie industry references. Taylor Swift, Phil Collins, check. Dwayne Johnson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Nottinghill, Pretty Woman, we could go on.

But there is a thread of a traditional bad people vs good people story around which fast and furious action is wrapped. The special effects, including a deep fake reference, make it technically, very today.

Ultimately, it’s the good old romance and the “love letter” to the unsung heroes who take a hit, quite literally, on behalf of the heroes, that comes together.

So, like the stunt performers’ sign to the crew after a heart-in-the-mouth action piece, Leitch gets a “thumbs up”. And yeah, I liked the way the term ‘The Fall Guy’ is used in the story.

The Fall Guy – Watch Or Not?: Thumbs up for the backstage performers who don’t win an Oscar and for Ryan Gosling.

The Fall Guy Score Rating: 3 out of 5 (i.e. 3/5)

The Fall Guy Official Trailer: