Reports of the death of the movie star have been greatly exaggerated.
Over the past 10 months at the box office, we’ve seen up-and-coming A-listers — or at least, the modern equivalent considering there's no longer much of a monoculture — prove their power again and again. Margot Robbie in Barbie, Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet in Dune: Part Two, Zendaya again in Challengers, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in Anyone but You. The new generation is proving that movie-star wattage can still put butts in seats.
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have long been two of our finest movie stars, and The Fall Guy lets them flex all of their charismatic muscles. The film is engineered within an inch of its life to please crowds, and moviegoers are going to respond accordingly.
The story is essentially a pulp noir conceit dressed up in blockbuster action-comedy garb. Gosling’s Colt Seavers, the favored stuntman of movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a hilarious shit-heel turn), is returning to the job 18 months after he was injured during a stunt gone wrong. Seavers is called in for last-minute work on the Dune-esque sci-fi epic Metalstorm, which is being directed by Emily Blunt’s Jody Moreno, Seavers’ former almost-girlfriend. When Ryder goes missing, Seavers has to find him to save the fictional movie.
The movie uses the plot as a vessel to give the audience a behind-the-scenes look at the head-spinning amount of work that goes into a major movie stunt. The director, David Leitch, is himself a former stuntman, which gives the proceedings a tactical bit of expertise.
Leitch’s experience as a stunt performer also allows the movie to showcase some truly impressive stuntwork. Bodies zip through the air after being lit on fire, boats launch off of ramps, vehicles flip a dangerous number of times, and helicopters hover above the chaos. It’s an action extravaganza and an ode to stunt work as an art form, not just a practical necessity. The film even goes so far as to explicitly reference the Academy’s lack of an Oscar category for stunt performers.
Leitch isn’t just obsessed with stunts; he’s also obsessed with movies in general. Winston Duke’s Dan Tucker, Melatstorm’s stunt coordinator and Colt’s best friend, is constantly quoting famous lines from other films. The script name-drops everything from Memento to Thelma & Louise. It’s a film for movie fans, made by a major movie fan, for better and for worse.
There’s a running joke throughout the film about fixing the overcomplicated third act of the fictional movie they’re shooting. It’s a problem Leitch’s movies have also suffered from following his departure from the John Wick universe, and The Fall Guy is no exception. It may be an intentional bit of meta-commentary, but this is not Scream. It's a difficult needle to thread, and Leitch and screenwriter Drew Pearce can’t quite pull off the feat despite a genuinely clever script.
But with Gosling and Blunt operating at full charm capacity, it’s easy to overlook the movie’s few faults. Gosling might not be fully in the Ken Zone (or The Nice Guys Zone, for the true Ryan-heads), but he’s at his best when he gets to be a Grade-A Goofball like he is here. Blunt, meanwhile, gets to show off her comedic chops — something she didn’t get to do while leading other action vehicles like Sicario and Edge of Tomorrow. The pair have crackling chemistry.
The crowd I saw The Fall Guy with was captivated by every car crash, pratfall and romantic gesture. Action, comedy and romance — the recipe for a true all-quadrants summer blockbuster. What’s not to enjoy?
