The Fall Guy

Or: Don’t Try This At Home.

Let’s be honest with ourselves; we came to watch the Fall Guy for the stunts. Based on the 80’s television show of the same name, staring Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, the new blockbuster thumbing its nose at blockbusters, is directed by David Leitch, a former stunt actor and director, who’s incredibly obvious aim is to sing a peon to his former profession and its many unsung heroes. And it certainly delivers.

Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the best stuntman in the business, until an onset accident cuts short his career and his relationship with aspiring director Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). With his ex finally making her name directing Metalstorm, a syfi epic (think Dune meets Fury Road; everyone in the film says its going to be incredible … appearances say otherwise), Colt is lured back to set by Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) to hunt down Jody’s star and extricate him from a sticky situation, saving production and possibly restoring his relationship.

This should be a sufficient thong of plot for wondrous escapades is daring do, both the up close and personal (sword fight in a loft) to the free for all (murderous security crew vs stunt coordinators on motorbikes), the classic (speed boat chase) to the beautifully imagined (fistfight on a garbage truck coming apart at the seams at high speed on the streets of Sydney, like a titlawhirl of death). The pity of it is the movie tries to be more with its elements (very admirable) but thinks a little spit and polish will make due for substance.

For example, the relationship between Jody and Colt is set to be the beating heart of the film: not only their own personal love story, but the engine that drives Metalstorm to its promised greatness. But it really skates by on Blunt and Gosling’s prowess in playing highly competent dweebs, who reach out and touch the frightened, confused dweeb inside all of us. That aside this is a very good film for Blunt, who is at her best both as an action star (beating an intruder in her trailer to a pulp, and delivering the one punch in a sea of danger that made us all flinch in the theater) to the comedy of ruminating on art and love with her hand inside an enormous alien claw or stuffing her mouth with bar snacks in a moment of heartbreak before stunning her crew with an amazing karaoke number. As for Gosling, he shines, he’s endearing, he’s magnetic, he’s funny; but if you really want to see him act go watch Barbie.

I also feel cheated that most of the film crew (that community which perhaps above any other art must rely on each others talents to make things happen) gets boiled down to stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), and a bit part for a PA played by Stephanie Hsu (though she is always a delight, no matter how meager a fair is placed before her.) And while Waddingham gives us the conniving, chummy, ferocious work that has made her a household name, Gail as a character is too transparently a Rebecca Welton knockoff, transplanted from Football to the Movie Business, and I’ll not stand to see one of the greatest characters of the last twenty years shorn of their redemption arc.

If I’m hard on the Fall Guy it’s only because it promises to be more than what it is, and it comes to close to being what it promised. There’s one scene that will stand out in my memory and it well worth the price of admission: a montage of Jody directing Colt through a Metalstorm battle scene, the two rekindling their working and personal relationship, playing with each other, set to the joyful skitter of ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love.’ It accomplishes everything that Leitch keeps trying to capture, the romance, the fun, the poetry of bodies flying through the air, ands the majesty of playing pretend with all the toys.