Review | The Fall Guy movie review: Ryan Gosling plays Hollywood stuntman in engrossing action comedy
- Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stuntman searching for a missing star, while Emily Blunt plays his love interest, camera operator Jody Moreno
- The romantic chemistry between the leads, and the fun-packed action scenes, combine to make this the funniest mainstream movie of the year
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4/5 stars
As part of Hollywood’s increasingly desperate trawl through the archives for viable IP, the powers that be have settled on The Fall Guy.
The US TV series, starring Lee Majors as a stuntman turned bounty hunter, ran for five seasons in the 1980s, but it is hard to argue this is a fondly thought-of show that generates waves of nostalgia.
Perhaps that works in its favour, for David Leitch’s reimagining is a vibrant action-comedy that leans heavily on the romantic chemistry between its leads.
Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a veteran stunt performer who is romancing Emily Blunt’s camera operator Jody Moreno. For the past six years, Seavers has doubled for A-list action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but then a stunt goes disastrously wrong, leaving him injured and forced to make a living as a valet.
Then, out of the blue, Seavers gets the call from top producer Gail Meyer (Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham) and soon he is heading to Australia – only to discover that Jody, who he has ghosted in the intervening 18 months, is the director of a new sci-fi spectacular called Metalstorm.
From here, The Fall Guy channels detective vibes, as Seavers is instructed to look for its star, Ryder, who has gone missing.
Gosling and Blunt also make for a fabulous double act, as they flirt over the prospect of spicy margaritas in the middle of shooting a dangerous set piece.
There are plenty of pokes at Hollywood in the script by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3), but there’s nothing cynical about The Fall Guy – it never feels like it is biting the hand that feeds in any malicious way.
Ryder has a ball as the typically self-involved superstar, while Waddingham is equally riotous as the producer who stalks the set in killer heels.
With a star cameo and an end credits sequence that shows the real stuntmen on The Fall Guy performing their duties, there is also a lot of love for these unsung heroes of the film business.
The connection to the original TV series may be tenuous at best – and the final act is way too long – but it scarcely matters when Gosling and Blunt are acing it on screen. The Fall Guy is the funniest mainstream movie so far this year.
