‘The Fall Guy’ Review – Action-Heavy, Stunt-Loving Absurdity

Chris Sawin   |  

May 6, 2024

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Loosely based on the 1981 TV series of the same name, which ran for five seasons and 113 episodes and starred Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, The Fall Guy has been in development since 2010. 

In The Fall Guy, Colt Seavers (Gosling) has a reputation as one of, if not, the best stunt performers in the business. He is dating a camera operator named Jody Moreno (Blunt), and everything seems to be going well until a freak accident leaves Colt with a broken back. Colt disappears from the industry for 18 months and ghosts Jody at the height of their relationship. 

Colt has seemingly moved on from the business until producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) convinces him that Jody has asked for Colt specifically to work on her directorial debut. However, once Colt arrives on set, it’s revealed that he’s brought in to help locate missing action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

Initially, The Fall Guy begins as a behind-the-scenes look at action blockbusters, where there’s this close-knit crew that finds work on the same films. In particular, Jody’s film Metalstorm has a gag where pyro is being set off too early, and the writing of her third act is having trouble coming to fruition.

The film’s secondary storyline sees Colt investigating Tom’s disappearance, which is essentially another movie in itself with all of its twists and turns and crazy action pieces that no one seems to see but the audience. 

The Fall Guy works best during its action sequences, followed somewhat closely by its comedy, with romance being its weakest link. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have good chemistry together as Colt Seavers and Jody Moreno, but they’re more believable as friends than as lovers.

Penned by Drew Pearce (Hobbs & Shaw, Hotel Artemis), The Fall Guy has a bumbling sense of humor that needs about five or six of its world record-breaking 8.5 cannon rolls before it starts being funny.

Most of the humor can be found in long-winded rambles and the cringe-induced discomfort that comes with something dragging on much longer than it should. One example is Colt and Jody airing their issues over a bullhorn amongst the entire Metalstorm crew.

While the comedic back-and-forth banter between Gosling and Blunt feels genuine, albeit likely improvised, any sequence involving the two of them being intimate feels forced. Since there’s conflict and a disconnect between them throughout most of the film, this may have been done on purpose, but it’s also unequivocally the least enjoyable aspect of the film.

In contrast, take Dan Tucker (Winston Duke) for example, who is the stunt coordinator on Metalstorm and Colt’s best friend. In the film, Dan constantly references and quotes movies, while Winston Duke’s bromance with Ryan Gosling is arguably more entertaining than Gosling’s with Blunt in the film.

The writing in The Fall Guy is ridiculous, but it finds a stride of brilliance in its second half. Jodie’s film Metalstorm, for example. is a not-so-subtle metaphor for her broken relationship with Colt, but it’s injected into this sci-fi actioner with cowboys and aliens. 

Director David Leitch (Bullet Train, Deadpool 2) was a stuntman for 20 years before directing Atomic Blonde in 2017. Leitch knows how to create memorable action sequences, and The Fall Guy has several. The club scene with blacklight lighting feels like an homage to Sin City, and the garbage truck chase through the streets of Sidney is wild and glorious. 

The Fall Guy tries to be the biggest action film imaginable. It is like The Other Guys if it leaned heavier into action than comedy. It has the rambling dialogue of Anchorman and the amusing behind-the-scenes mayhem of Tropic Thunder. 

Ryan Gosling continues to dominate Hollywood by adding believable action stars to his already impressive resume, even if he did have four stunt doubles for this film. Stunts have gone underappreciated for a long time, and The Fall Guy gives stuntmen a monster-truck-sized tribute that crashes and smashes its way into our hearts before lighting it on fire and doing it all over again.

NEXT: ‘Boy Kills World’ Review – A Punch-Drunk Lobotomy To The Action Genre