The Fall Guy Review: Pleasant Action Comedy Doesn’t Go Beyond its Concept

Stunt men and women have always been an undisclosed backbone of the current Hollywood engine, so it makes sense that the industry would rather make a movie about them than give them better benefits or recognition. 

The Fall Guy is first and foremost an ode to this forgotten craft, and while it doesn’t fully succeed in its intention, its theme is nice, and I appreciate its dedication to an underlooked industry. It’s an original story, and even though I know  it’s important to go into a film with an unbiased opinion I find it necessary to support and appreciate original work. Especially at that budget, knowing what the standard of Hollywood is, films like these might not exist anymore.

But that’s an important part of this puzzle, though. There’s a reason why films like this aren’t made, and it’s not just because they belong to some sort of IP, or the numbers don’t allow it to be successful. The concept is original, yes. But the plot? That’s something I’ve seen a thousand times in a thousand other pictures. 

It’s a predictable story, centered on a thinly developed relationship. Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets the girl again. I don’t even feel like that's a spoiler because it’s so obvious from the beginning of the film. It’s not a thinking movie, and while I don’t actually disparage films that lack high intellectual prowess I do feel that they have to make up for it in other ways. Take John Wick (2014) for example, which David Leich was also a director of. That movie isn’t a thinker either. What it does have is a charismatic lead, a focused plot, an interesting world, and some incredible action choreography. Fall Guy has maybe one of these things.

There’s one thing keeping this movie afloat, and it’s pretty clear that Ryan Gosling continues to put in good work. He’s an impressively expressive comedic actor, which is a funny juxtaposition with his straight faced dramatic work. He’s lovely as a comedic actor, and his timing makes for a few of my all time favorite performances (The Nice Guys, and of course Ken from the Barbie movie). He’s whimsical, quirky, and impressively down to earth. Now, the writing doesn’t really give him anything to work with other than his dedication to Emily Blunt, but he does a good job of elevating his scenes and using his experience to his advantage. I can tell that Gosling approached this film with a professional attitude, and like always, he improved the acting of his  scene partners as well. 

Speaking of scene partners, I’m going to say something that might be a little controversial; Emily Blunt may not be as good of an actress as the status she receives. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked her in nearly everything I’ve seen her in. But have I loved her? I don’t know that I have. She was charismatic in Edge of Tomorrow, but her character was naturally a little one note. Oppenheimer was the same thing for me. Frankly, I forgot she was the lead in Sicario so she may have been great and I just forgot. The fact that I forgot though doesn’t bode well for it blowing me away though. 

She was perfectly fine in this film, and her scenes with gosling especially were well put together. They had a good chemistry, she and him, that felt effortless and comfortable, as if they had been in a relationship for years already. I didn’t particularly think that she elevated her role, although I also believe her character wasn’t written in a way that was conducive to highlighting her acting. I can sum up her character in one sentence: Emily Blunt plays a no nonsense film director looking for the love she thought she had with Gosling, but now has to question whether or not he’s worth the attention. She’s strong, and yet still objectified. Emily Blunt’s made a career out of playing these powerful women, sort of as a feminist twist on the ever apparent damsel in distress sort of moniker that comes with a lot of these big budget films. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a step in the right direction, but when you spend all the literary effort to do the opposite of the previous you still find yourself shackled by its presence. The goal here is to not objectify and limit what women can be right? So that only comes from writing fully developed roles for them. There’s no girlbossing your way out of this one, as much as I hate to say it.

I’m kidding, I'm kidding…  kind of. It’s a nice film with a decent heart. An appreciative film that while I feel made a few mistakes  that left me wishing it was better, it clearly had the stunt team's best interest in mind.

The stunt team by the way, is something I agree should absolutely have its own category for Oscar consideration. Not only does it recognize a criminally underrepresented art form throughout cinema, but it addresses something the Oscars have long been trying to solve: finding a place for the most popular films in the prestige award show. By doing this, they can include these films while maintaining the status of the award. These stunts are an artform in and of themselves. I always like to mention that a good action sequence works in a similar vein that dance works on the screen. It’s entirely visual, oftentimes thematic, and can leave a good indication as to who the characters are. There are scenes which have a beauty the current awards landscape finds impossible to quantify. Does the sandstorm chase in Mad Max: Fury Road not warrant your attention? Or the Battle of Helm's Deep in Lord of the Rings? These scenes are the result of hours of endless prep work, and do their best to enhance the visual medium of film. There’s debate as to who should get the award. Personally, I’d give it to the stunt coordinator in the main ceremony, with a few supplementary awards to go with it off the telecast.

Not that it’s a major aspect to the film, but PLEASE PLEASE GIVE WINSTON DUKE MORE ROLES!! He’s so talented and brings a lot to each of his characters, I find it shocking that a man with such leading man ability has been so consistently relegated to side character roles. He was great in Black Panther (2017), he was phenomenal in Us (2019), and his best work was in Nine Days (2020), which used him in a way that accentuated his best qualities. I was sad to see him in such a relegated role here, especially because I know he deserves more. He was fine in this movie, but he wasn’t given anything special. It almost seemed like he was given a role that was supposed to be more, but was trimmed down in the final edit. I had a similar experience with Stephanie Hsu

Beyond the performances though, the thing I was most surprised by was the lack of actual stunning choreography/ action sequences. They were good, like they were fine, but other than an interesting car chase in the middle there wasn’t a whole lot to go for. This is an angle I really wish they’d gone more toward, because having a stunt coordinator with such a fantastic history of stunts as your director leads me to believe the stunt work would’ve been better. If the movie wasn’t a thinker, it should’ve had stunts or action sequences that rival something like Mission Impossible or the Raid movies. I know, easier said than done. I just feel that the level of ambition wasn’t where it needed to be, and if it were higher it could’ve made the film more successful. 

They had a few homages to classic stunt sequences though, like the hook on the back of the shirt or the car hop from one place to another. I appreciated the way it opened up more about how stunt doubles feel about certain sequences, and the way they felt/acted in their day to day life. In that way the film seemed very personal, with the relationships between the stunt members and the rest of the crew being entertaining and a little informative. Aaron Taylor-Johnson did a good job in his role as the asshole actor, a role in which made me realize that he could be more animated than I thought. I didn’t really like that each of the villains were a bit of a cliche, but I did think it was funny that that’s what the stunt double’s saw them as. This personable energy kept the film going, because despite the difficulties I had with the writing it can be interesting to see a view of the film industry from the perspective of someone I hadn’t seen before.

And while I found the story to be lackluster, I didn’t find it to be offensive in any way. It was charming in its own right and it was comforting to watch. I’d just finished a long day of work when I decided to put this on, simply because I’d figured the story wouldn’t be so difficult to handle. I wish that they put more effort into the plot, but at the end of the day it served its purpose. It's just that plots like that can be big screen successes anymore, not when a thousand other movies like that exist right at the touch of a button on your phone. When original films are released, I hope that they can be more ambitious than that, because the act of making an original film by itself is now an ambitious act. I’m hoping that one day it’ll change, but it’ll take a few more company deconstructions before anything like that were to happen. 

So the movie is as it is: an inoffensive original effort that without the charm of Ryan Gosling falls from its foundation. Despite its disappointing lack of ambitious stunt choreography and its cliche plotline, it was comforting, and perfectly enjoyable. It had a cast that was capable of better things, but in the end they were hampered by the writing that didn’t give them a chance to properly use their strengths. 

Grade: ☀☀