Movies

The Fall Guy
Trailer: Universal Pictures

The Fall Guy (2024)
Directed by David Leitch
Rated PG-13
Stunted 3 May 2024
#TheFallGuyMovie

The Fall Guy is a modern Hollywood unicorn: a great, old-fashioned crowd-pleaser.

The Unknown Stuntman

A lot has been made of how The Fall Guy is a love letter to the unsung heroes of the movies, the stunt men and women who put their lives on the line to make movie action come alive for audiences.

But this big-screen adaptation of the popular 1980s TV series is a lot more than that. A wonderful aspect is how much it’s a love letter more broadly to moviemaking as a collective effort and to movies as a pop culture touchstone, including famous quotes that get embedded into society’s vernacular. Even the opening and closing credits are styled in the fashion of a screenplay. Still, the big surprise is how it’s also a love letter to romantic comedies — the rather rare, really good romantic comedies.

The original series revolved around Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who takes on a side hustle as a cheap detective. As played by Lee Majors, the role turns into a nice, vulnerable follow-up after Majors’ huge success as Col. Steve Austin, better known as the Six Million Dollar Man. In the series, Colt had a couple constant companions, including Jody Banks (Heather Thomas) and Howie Munson (Douglas Barr), along with a handler for his investigative work. There was Jo Ann Pflug for the first season, followed by Markie Post for the bulk of the series.

Sexy Bacon

In making the leap to the big screen, The Fall Guy keeps the general tone and spirit of the series while also switching-up Colt’s romantic life. Colt (Ryan Gosling, Barbie) is still a stuntman, but he’s fallen for Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer), an on-set collaborator who’s risen through the ranks and has finally landed her first gig as a feature film director. After surviving a back-breaking injury in a stunt mis-hap, Colt drops off the Hollywood grid, changes his phone number and attempts a disappearing act, starting a new-life in the even less glamorous world of valet parking at a Los Angeles Mexican restaurant.

It sounds romantic to say fate brings the two back together, but it’s really the manipulations of an industry player that lands Colt on the set of Jody’s big sci-fi romantic adventure. Unfortunately, the movie’s star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kick-Ass), has gone missing. Colt backs his way into the thick of the mystery, not as a formal side gig, but as a survival gig. He’s framed for the murder and Jody’s Hollywood masterpiece in the making might go the way of Batgirl: shelved.

There’s a murder. There’s a cover-up. There’s a romance. There’s a whole lot of fun.

Movie Memories

Think about movies about making movies, titles like Hooper, Get Shorty, Hail, Caesar! and Tropic Thunder. Throw in Romancing the Stone and The Lost City.

Now try to forget about all of them.

The Fall Guy deftly takes all the elements that make for a memorable blockbuster and then makes a memorable blockbuster. Director David Leitch is a former stuntman who’s rapidly built a solid catalog as a director, including John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2. Here, he’s working with another rich screenplay from Drew Pearce, who has Iron Man 3 and Hotel Artemis in his library.

The result is a “movie movie” with moments that will be referenced by movies in the future.

One nuevo-classic scene has Colt and Jody talking movies over the phone while exploring their separate environments. They talk about the effectiveness of split-screen scenes as the movie — surprise — goes split-screen. Their actions mirror each other. And then Jody dons a grotesque monster’s hand glove and sits deep in thought, perfectly stroking her eyebrow with a gnarly monster fingernail. It’s pure movie magic. It’s also a display of moviemaking genius that makes it all look so easy when, in fact, it’s anything but easy. It’s remarkably hard to make a scene that remarkable.

Seeing Unicorns

The romantic element in The Fall Guy is surprisingly solid. Blunt and Gosling make a great pair, every bit on par with Turner and Douglas and Hepburn and Tracy. They get to trade great dialogue, the kind of dialogue that’s smart and makes the ears dance. (And some of it’s only in the trailers.)

There’s an inspirational line about grabbing the wheel behind your own life story instead of riding shotgun. There’s also some great wit that keeps the mind engaged, such as a very funny bit of conversation in the heat of a wild fight between Colt and Iggy Star (Teresa Palmer, Warm Bodies). Apparently, a movie totally biffed a great idea for a joke: a guy gets shot in the hand then is teased with a line about hoping he can drive stick. But, no. The car was an automatic. It’s such a great bit of movie humor and storytelling detail.

As the plot thickens, the characters also grapple with some of the technology transforming the movie business today, including motion capture tech that has morphed into an unsettlingly readily available technology for creating deep fakes.

And, yes, the stunts are fast and furious and mighty impressive. They’re real, not CGI. And the movie carves out an appropriate claim to fame by including a cannon roll stunt that set the new Guinness World Record at 8 ½ rolls.

Throw in a well-placed unicorn and The Fall Guy manages to hit one high note after another that rolls right into a doozy of a twist that lands midway through the end credits. Pay close attention to two people making an appearance.

When a movie is strong enough to sustain the momentum and earn big laughs even during the end credits, it’s something special. It is a unicorn.

Stuntman Logan Holladay breaks the Guinness world record for cannon rolls
Featurette: Universal Pictures

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.

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