‘The Fall Guy’ review: Ryan Gosling shines in sloppy slice of summer fun
Surely, Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir has had easier gigs.
Watching “The Fall Guy” — the big-screen take on the 1980s TV fave about a Hollywood stuntman who worked on the side as a bounty hunter that this week kicks off the summer movie season — you can’t help but think of its editor.
“The Fall Guy” is many things: an homage to the show; a romance; a vehicle for stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt; a large-scale action flick; and a love letter to stunt performers — those who do the dangerous work or, as the movie suggests early on, get to do “the cool stuff.”
It is big, and it is messy, but Ronaldsdóttir has helped mold it into something that, while lumpy and misshapen, is more entertaining than not.
This isn’t her first cinematic rodeo with director David Leitch, having collaborated with him on hit movies including such winners as 2017’s “Atomic Blonde” and 2018’s “Deadpool 2,” so she surely knew what she was signing up for.
It is, of course, entirely fitting that Leitch sat in the director’s chair for “The Fall Guy,” as he once was a stuntman himself. Famously, he was Brad Pitt’s stunt double on 1999’s “Fight Club.”
Here, the stuntman is Gosling’s Colt Seaver, the movie borrowing the name of Lee Majors’ hero from the TV series, which ran from 1981 to ’86.
When we meet Colt, he’s at the top of his game, specializing in being the stunt double for Hollywood megastar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Leitch’s “Bullet Train”). On the set of a big movie — Leitch and another frequent collaborator, director of photography Jonathan Sela, appear to take great pleasure in showing off the scale of such a shoot with a couple of elaborate shots — Colt is about to perform a huge fall.
On the way up to his starting point, he flirts via walkie-talkie with camera operator Jody Moreno (Blunt), the two talking about how, after the movie wraps, they could grab a couple of swimsuits — or, as a Brit such as herself would say, “swimming costumes” — hit a beach somewhere and enjoy a few margaritas, as well as the bad decisions to which they lead.
The fall goes badly.
Eighteen months later, Colt, perhaps more psychologically damaged than physically so, is out of the stunt game, making a living by parking cars for a Mexican restaurant. And, having long ago pushed away a caring Jody, he is a walking pile of regret.
When old producer friend Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham of “Ted Lasso”) calls, asking him to be a last-minute fill-in on a set in Sydney, Australia, he declines. She then tells him it’s for Jody’s directorial debut and that his old flame requested him.
He says he’ll need an aisle seat.
Upon arriving at the shoot and set to do a car stunt known as a cannon roll, he complains about the sand on which he’ll be driving on — it’s, um, not dense enough — to another old pal, stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke of “Black Panther”), who coaxes him into the car.
The stunt goes well, save for Colt destroying a camera tracking his car, but Jody is shocked to learn he is behind the wheel. She did NOT, in fact, request him.
Unable to kick him off the project, she instead sets him on fire repeatedly for one scene. Between these hot takes, her frustration via bullhorn over what happened in their relationship under the thinly veiled guise of talking about the lead characters in her epic science-fiction romance flick, “Metalstorm.’
At the end of the day, Colt gets into a truck, cranks a Taylor Swift song, thinks about their time together and cries — at least until Jody catches him. They talk, and while it’s clear feelings still exist between them, they agree to keep things very “profesh.”
Colt soon has bigger problems than Jodie, as Gail has secretly recruited him to find the movie’s missing star, the aforementioned Tom Ryder. She convinces Colt that to save Jodie’s movie, the cops must be kept out of it, and he agrees to take on the task.
From here, “The Fall Guy” keeps things really loose, Leitch and writer Drew Pearce (“Iron Man 3,” Leitch’s “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”) prioritizing action and gags over clear storytelling. (Hey, it’s now summer at the movies — what did you expect?)
As Colt works to uncover the mystery of Tom’s disappearance, Gosling does a lot of the heavy lifting to keep “The Fall Guy” from falling apart. He brings some leftover “Ken”-ergy from the cultural event that was last year’s “Barbie,” for which he earned a well-deserved nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He nails every important line read with great Kenfidence, er, confidence.
One of the movie’s issues is that Jody becomes a glorified background player, not the best use of the talents of Blunt, a four-time Oscar nominee including for her work in the other half 2023’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, “Oppenheimer.” “The Fall Guy” would have benefited from a setup that gave more time with its leads together. (One of the movie’s many meta moments has them talking via split-screen as Jody talks about its potential use in her movie, Leitch deciding to educate us on that filmmaking choice and others.)
So, OK, “The Fall Guy” leaves you wanting a bit more, but it succeeds as a two-hour excuse to shove buttery popcorn into your mouth.
And those hoping for a nod to the show beyond the initial offering of closing credits, which feature the “Unknown Stuntman” theme song from the show, should stick around for an extra treat.
Yes, “The Fall Guy” makes a bit of a mess of things, but it sure has fun doing it.
‘The Fall Guy’
Where: Theaters.
When: May 3.
Rated: PG-13 for action and violence, drug content and some strong language.
Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes.
Stars (of four): 2.5.