The Fall Guy

This movie is one of the best releases of the year, but for some insane reason, didn’t get the respect or make the money it deserved. For shame!

A love letter to the stuntmen and stuntwomen of the film industry, The Fall Guy follows Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) after being grievously injured during a high-stakes stunt gig, and his attempts to get back to where he once was professionally, but also rekindle a romance with the director of his latest movie, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Soon tasked with finding the lead of the film, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), after he mysteriously goes missing, it doesn’t take long for Colt to get wrapped up in something far more sinister and dangerous, leading him on a wild goose chase that pushes him to his limits both personally and professionally. What follows is a near-perfect amalgamation of all things Hollywood does best while raising the stakes for Colt in a way that he may not be able to pull off before things get worse than they already are.

I gotta be honest, The Fall Guy is one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen in a long time. From the consistent and genuinely funny humor to the real-feeling and charming romance between Gosling and Blunt to the numerous action scenes featuring record-breaking stunts and practical effects, all the way to the spot-on soundtrack spread throughout, The Fall Guy is a movie I had my eye on from the moment the first trailer dropped, and luckily for me — and all the people who actually saw this one in theaters — it didn’t disappoint one bit. Giving audiences everything they could ask for and more, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t feel the same way after walking out of the theater, and despite it underperforming at the box office, I was left wanting more films like this.

That being said I do have a few nitpicks that I have to knock this one for. Though the script — based on an old TV show from the 1908s — is solid, I couldn’t help but feel that in between all the great action, comedy, and romance, the story itself took a backseat to the spectacle of it all. And while the script’s character work was something I appreciated, especially for a popcorn film like this, the overall trajectory of the story seemed, at times, like it had to remind itself of what it was actually about. With more than a few jarring transitions going from scene to scene, it felt like the filmmakers almost had to force themselves to refocus on the narrative when they didn’t really want to, something that didn’t necessarily lessen the watching experience for me but did draw attention to how certain plot beats weren’t as threaded through the film as everything else was.

Not only does The Fall Guy give audiences a truly entertaining experience from beginning to end, but it’s clear that the filmmakers cared immensely about making something fresh and new for people to enjoy, with everything from the script to the casting to the incredible stunt work impressing on levels I haven’t seen in quite some time. Sure, the story loses steam in places but overall, The Fall Guy succeeds in countless ways that other summer blockbusters utterly fail at, putting this one in the conversation as one of the best movies of the year, as well as one of my current favorite films I’ve seen in recent memory.