The Fall Guy

THE FALL GUY (12)

D: David Leitch

Universal / 87 North / Entertainment 360 (Kelly McCormick, David Leitch, Guyman Casady & Ryan Gosling)

US 🇺🇸 2024

126 mins

Action/Comedy

W: Drew Pearce [based on the television series created by Glen A. Larson]

DP: Jonathan Sela

Ed: Elisabet Ronaldsdóttir 

Mus: Dominic Lewis

Ryan Gosling (Colt Seavers), Emily Blunt (Jody Moreno), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Tom Ryder), Hannah Waddingham (Gail Meyers), Teresa Palmer (Iggy Starr), Winston Duke (Dan Tucker), Stephanie Hsu (Alma Milan)

The Fall Guy is a film I wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did, even if the suspension of disbelief does need to do a lot heavy lifting for this one.

Loosely based on the television series of the same name, Ryan Gosling plays stuntman Colt Seavers, who regularly fills in for narcissistic movie star, Tom Ryder.  Following an injury that nearly cost him his career, he is persuaded by a truly annoying producer to travel to Australia to work on the latest in of an action movie series and is his ex-girlfriend’s directorial debut.  Once there, he has to patch up the relationship with this old flame, but also becomes involved in a conspiracy that has seen the lead star go missing.

The action is chaotic in the Jason Bourne style which has become the norm over the past couple of decades, but there’s some really great stunt work and choreography on display here, and though the plot, script and dialogue are very silly, it’s easy to go along with because the filmmakers are playing it for laughs, much like the same director did with 2022’s “Bullet Train”, which I very much hold in the same regard as a dumb, fun action-comedy.

Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt are both great, and possibly the reason this all works so well, but the rest of the cast not so much, particularly Hannah Waddingham, whose scenes could have been cut out without affecting the plot too much at all.

It’s a shame that this underachieved during its cinema run and was considered a flop by the studio & media, though this was a similar fate for many quite decent films released in 2024.

7/10