‘The Fall Guy’ Is a Tribute to Stunt Performers — and Movie Stars
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They take the punches, they jump through windows, they get set on fire, they ride the motorcycles through narrow alleyways and down steep staircases at death-defying speeds. They are the stunt men and women who make it seem as if the folks whose names are above the title are risking their lives just to entertain you, the viewer. In today’s pixel-eat-pixel world where VFX and CGI rule the roost, these fearless performers may seem like an anomaly — a throwback to an analog era where actual humans [gasp] had to provide the thrills and spills that are a key part of cinema’s DNA. But they’re still a big part of the industry, and are still the people you call when you need someone to plummet out of a helicopter onto a flaming speedboat going 80mph.
And most of them remain anonymous, just workaday servants to the magic of moviemaking. “I might fall from a tall building/I might roll a brand new car/But I’m the unknown stunt man/Who made Redford such a star.” That’s from the lyrics of The Fall Guy, the 1980s TV series that featured Lee Majors as Colt Seavers, a gentleman who crashed Porsches for the cameras by day and collected bounties on criminals in his off hours. It was a primetime show that paid homage to the art form, even as it kept up the myth of the nameless, faceless daredevil. (Most people could tell you the former Six Million Dollar Man starred as Seavers. Even The Fall Guy‘s most dedicated fans would probably need to Google search who Majors’ stunt double was.)
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I’m not sure anyone was begging for someone to come along and adapt a goofy, if fondly remembered five seasons of Reagan-era cheese whiz for the big screen in this, the year of our lord 2024. It’s not exactly an I.P. with across-the-board recognition for the TikTok generation. But many, many people still want to plunk down cash to witness unbelievably charming, photogenic actors do the kiss-kiss-bang-bang tango as their faces are projected 20 feet high — especially if one of them is The Ken Who Would Be King.
That’s why we have The Fall Guy, a movie that borrows the title and a few names from that ’80s show, then burns rubber while going its own way. Yes, it doubles as a way for former-stuntman-turned-director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train) to pay proper tribute to his fellow bruised, battered brethren. Not for nothing does this start out with a montage of actual stunt performers doing what they do best. But this is really about the rush of watching Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt making goo-goo eyes at each other in between the occasional explosions, high-pursuit car chases, shoot-outs and industry in-jokes. That’s entertainment!
Gosling is Colt Seavers, the longtime stunt double for the world’s biggest action star/diva Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He’s been spending a lot of time on his latest shoot nuzzling up to Jody Moreno (Blunt), the camera operator. Seavers thinks it’s more than a film-set fling. What should be a simple 12-story fall backwards with wires turns into an accident, however, and sends the stunt man to the hospital. Cut to a year and a half later, and Seavers is parking cars at a restaurant. He hasn’t spoken to his crush since the incident, or returned her phone calls and texts. The whole thing has thrown life into an existential tailspin, and turned his status as Ryder’s go-to guy into a thing of the past.
Then the phone rings. It’s Ryder’s longtime agent, Gail (Ted Lasso‘s Hannah Waddingham). She needs Seavers to get on a plane to Sydney ASAP. It seems that her star client has lost his new stunt double, putting his latest sci-fi action blockbuster Metalstorm at jeopardy, and he’s the only one that can save the day. Seavers wants nothing to do with it. Until he finds out that Jody is the director, that is, and realizes this may be his chance to finally rekindle their romance. Seavers may be fearless when “Action” is called, but when it comes to matters of the heart — he’s just Colt!
(Quick sidebar: Given the name, the fact that Ryder brags about doing his own stunts, and the look and feel of Metalstorm — which involves a guy shooting up aliens on a beach — it’s impossible to guess who the filmmakers might be partially basing Taylor-Johnson’s character on. And by “impossible,” we mean “obvious.” At the risk of seeming too geeky, the fact that Seavers goes out of his way to ask that the digital-effects team “make me look like Tom Cruise” suggests that this is world in which both Toms exist, and almost feels like a preemptive way of waving away comparisons. No word on whether Ryder ever tried to put up Scientology info tents while making his sci-fi blockbuster.)
Once he’s back in the fray, Seavers gets a frosty reception from the woman he essentially ghosted. He knows he’s fucked things up. Jody is quietly thrilled to see him again, but she’s also wary, angry, and ready to punish the new stunt man by making him slam into a rock a dozen times. There’s also a murder mystery, a chase involving a garbage truck and a dog who can bite crotches on command, a lot of shenanigans that require Gosling — or rather, Gosling’s stunt doubles Logan Holladay and Ben Jenkin; we’ll save you the Google search this time — to run, jump and drive like a maniac, and a big set piece at the end designed to nab all the bad guys. Whatever. It’s not that Leitch isn’t filling this action-comedy with his usual choreographed fights and bullet ballets and things-go-boom moments. Or that the film’s supporting players, which also include Winston Duke as the movie’s stunt coordinator and Stephanie Hsu as Ryder’s assistant, don’t use these sequences to the best of their advantage as well. (There’s a moment where Duke throws a prop tomahawk à la The Last of the Mohicans at a thug and yells “Daniel Day-Lewis!” that feels so gleefully ridiculous, we can barely stop laughing as we type this sentence out.)
Rather, The Fall Guy is at its delirious best not when it’s ginning up sound and fury and mayhem, but when it simply lets Gosling and Blunt trade screwball banter and give every scene they share a will-they-or-won’t-they tension. No one needs to be told that Gosling has excellent comic chops at this point, especially after he singlehandedly gave the Oscars ceremony 10ccs of pure, uncut hilarity. We don’t need to be sold on the fact that these two actors have extraordinary chemistry together either, or that they play off each other in a way that perfectly complements their strengths. (See also: the Oscars.) They are all this film needs to succeed. Several hours after seeing The Fall Guy, you may forget the majority of the stunts designed to show off the expertise of Leitch’s elite crew of drivers, martial artists and IRL fall guys. But you’ll likely remember a long confessional exchange between Colt and Jodie conducted with bullhorns. Or, in the film’s standout scene, a meta-conversation between the two of them involving the usage of split screens — conducted, naturally, via a split-screen — that sees Blunt making excellent use of a prop alien hand.
We don’t want to bag on Leitch for penning a love letter to an art form so often taken for granted or worse, left for dead by an industry that doesn’t appreciate their gifts. Seriously: Get them their Oscar category pronto! It’s just that so much of The Fall Guy feels indistinguishable from the dozens of other action films. And then Gosling and Blunt start flirting and fighting and verbally feinting with each other, and you feel like you’re floating an inch above your seat. You could just watch them do that for hours. This starts off as a movie made to highlight those who make the movies, purposefully tipping the baseball cap at the talents who take the hits yet rarely get the credits. It ends as a more fitting tribute to movie stars, reminding you that the greatest special effect remains a close-up of two people who happen to be famous exchanging a kiss, a retort or simply a look.
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