Summertime usually means the big blockbusters come out, the big budget epics that have a lot of action and explosions, and while they can be fun, I find myself getting more wary of them as I get older. It seems like many of them feel like movies I have seen before, so I have less interest in them. They can still be fun and all, but I think trailers are starting to become less effective for me because, quite frankly, most movies don’t live up to the hype of really good trailers.
But man, I could not for the life of me think of anything that made me want to skip The Fall Guy. And I have never seen the old Lee Majors TV show for what it’s worth.
Stuntman Cole Seavers (Ryan Gosling) has a good life. He’s the go-to stunt guy for major actor Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and a budding romance with camera operator Jody (Emily Blunt). But then an accident on the set essentially knocks him out of the game for over a year with no contact with anyone from his old life. But then he gets a call out of a blue from Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), the producer for all of Ryder’s movies: she needs a stunt double for Ryder’s latest sci-fi epic, Jody’s directorial debut, and Jody specifically asked for Cole to come back. As he is still nursing feelings for Jody, Cole agrees.
Of course, there were some lies told. Jody is still mad that Cole basically disappeared and did not ask for him or even know he was coming. But then there’s something else: Ryder disappeared at some point, and Gail needs Cole to go find him. Cole theoretically knows how Ryder thinks, and as a stuntman, he’s used to basically not being seen. Could he find Ryder before his absence ruins Jody’s first movie? And can he do it without telling the police since that might also ruin Jody’s movie? He’ll have a little help from his best buddy, the movie’s stunt coordinator Dan (Winston Smith), and a very good dog, but beyond that, he’ll just have to use his stunt skills to do what he needs to do, all without letting Jody know what’s happening.
I had a lot of fun with this movie. Director David Leitch was a stuntman himself before he became a director, and he knows how to frame some really good stunts, all while sometimes showing how the stunts were done both in-universe and during the closing credits. Gosling is his usual charismatic self, and he and Blunt have some good chemistry, with good performances from the entire cast, notably the two leads and Taylor-Johnson as a particularly dumb, self-centered movie star. And for all that the movie is full of great stunts and an action, it’s also a pretty good romantic comedy, the will-they-won’t-they-of-course-they-will going on between Cole and Jody.
If anything, the one flaw to the movie, and it’s a minor one, is that the movie’s plot is very, shall we say, traditional sort that would not have looked out of place in the 80s. The movie hits the right beats, but none of them were all that surprising. Given the movie is a tribute and even a throwback to an 80s TV series, that makes sense. Like I said, it’s a minor flaw that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the movie all that much, but it was something.
Grade: B+
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