Review of the movie The Fall Guy

The story of director David Leitch can be considered one of the most inspiring in Hollywood. He started out as a stuntman, performing dangerous stunts for stars like Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme, and he didn’t shy away from superhero sex comedy films like Orgasm. But today you may know him from John Wick, Deadpool 2, High Speed Train, and Atomic Blonde, which revealed Litch’s talent as a director.

At the same time, he does not forget his roots, which The Fall Guy clearly demonstrates. This is not just a good action movie, but also a personal movie with an interesting motive, which, however, always remains in the shadow of a somewhat confusing show for everyone.

The film’s protagonist Colt (Ryan Gosling) works as a stuntman, performing dangerous stunts for the egocentric superstar actor Paul Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He doesn’t dream of the heights of his movie career, but he doesn’t sit around. In addition, working in the same team with his beloved Jodie (Emily Blunt) helps him to keep going. However, circumstances turn out to be such that Colt gives up his career for a year and a half. He is forced to return by the news that Jodie is making her directorial debut. Now Colt is faced with three tasks simultaneously: shooting a large-scale movie, trying to establish a relationship with Jodie, who is very angry with the stuntman, and searching for the missing Ryder, without whom the whole movie will collapse.

As is often the case in modern Hollywood, this movie appeared for a reason, but for people outside the United States, it will not be so easy to understand. “Stuntman 2024 is a very loose adaptation of the 1980s TV series of the same name, in which stuntman Colt was also a bounty hunter. The skills he mastered during his main career helped him in apprehending criminals. By the way, the new movie even has a cameo by author Lee Majors, who played Colt in the original series. Most likely, this reference will pass you by, but such attention to detail is pleasantly surprising.

There are more than enough interesting details in the movie, but they always go in the background, so the story is not overloaded with unnecessary references. For example, the local film around which the plot unfolds resembles Vilnaev’s Dune with its color palette and soundtrack. And in one of the dialogues, they gently hinted at rumors that Aaron Taylor-Johnson could be the new James Bond. Without knowledge of the context of the modern film industry, such moments will also pass you by, they don’t make much of a difference, but some viewers will definitely be pleased to see something like this.

In The Fall Guy, Litch shows how well he has honed his visual language. Whereas other directors use visual images to try to convey some kind of message to the audience, here you are simply entertained, riveted to the screen and forced to exclaim “Wow!” in your mind. There are no unnecessary complications, everything is as simple as possible for people. Perhaps even too much, which makes some key plot twists and action scenes become obvious and trite.

There’s a term called a Reddit movie, which refers to entertaining films that try too hard to please the audience. Because of this, they are full of inappropriate jokes and stupid winks. The Fall Guy is conditionally in the same category, but the director tries to keep all the elements of the film, if not within the framework of common sense, then at least within the limits set by the script and the mood. It doesn’t always work out well, so sometimes something here seems too silly, something too artificial, and some moments even look superfluous.

However, everything that happens can only be perceived as a set of scenes, locations, and prerequisites for Ryan Gosling’s character. It’s a pleasure to watch him in The Fall Guy, as it is almost always. It’s not his best role, and it leans more toward the over-the-top comedy than the pathos and stoicism that Gosling is known for. But you certainly won’t be disappointed.

The rest of the actors also do not disappoint, even if Litch has built a clear division between the characters. The positive characters turned out to be as lively and vivid as possible, which is especially noticeable in the character of Emily Blunt. But the negative ones look more like caricatures. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because it fits into the overall context of the story, but you shouldn’t expect any revelations.

Of course, Litch’s next work could not do without competent action scenes. They are all beautiful and varied, and they are united by the leitmotif of the stunt profession. The latter is played out here with high quality and from all sides. And this is the strongest part of the movie.

If you are far from knowing about Litch’s biography, the nuances of the Hollywood world and filmmaking in general, Stuntman will seem like a good, albeit a bit silly, comedy action movie. However, through it, the director expresses his attitude towards the position of stuntmen in contemporary cinema. For example, Litch has long been dissatisfied with the fact that there is no separate Oscar for stunt work. After all, stuntmen perform very dangerous stunts, and almost none of the audience knows them.

From this angle, The Fall Guy turns into a straightforward statement about greedy producers, megalomaniacal actors, and “ordinary” workers on the set who suffer and deprive themselves of many pleasures just to make sure the audience gets a good story. By the way, be sure to stay for the credits, because here you will be shown some remarkable footage from the filming. The movie itself also demonstrates the everyday life of a fictional film crew quite well, although without going into too much detail.

It turns out that this is already a meta-statement that another artist would have treated at the level of postmodernism. But not Litch. He never loses contact with the audience and objective reality. That’s why The Fall Guy is, first of all, a mass and entertaining movie that does a good job of stealing you out of reality for more than two hours. Everything else is just a nice, but completely optional bonus.