The Fall Guy: Imagine that I didn’t know that this 2024 release with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt would be based on the characters from the 1980s TV show starring Lee Majors in his post-$6 Million Dollar Man phase. I saw the trailer and thought that I like both leads, and it looks like it is a stunt man based film.
In arriving at the theatre and the beginning of the movie starts, Ryan Gosling refers to himself as Colt Seavers and I immediately rolled my eyes. Then the pick up truck from the show is there too a beige high wheeled truck. As the movie carries on, I am surprised why Blunt and Gosling would be involved in it. The plot was so contrived with a love story between Gosling and Blunt’s characters where he was a stunt man, and she was a camera operator on a set. Colt is the stunt double for a pompous Tom Cruise-like character making various action-filled movies. He has his own preferred producer, played by Ted Lasso‘s Hannah Waddingham. Waddingham isn’t one of the talented actors whose talents are wasted here. She is over the top and obnoxious. She is looking to get this new space movie completed, but the star has disappeared. Colt eighteen months earlier suffered a bad accident but is encouraged to come back to the business.
There is tension as Colt returns to the set where Blunt’s character is now a director. Things happen. There is even a scene with Colt in a truck and he’s listening to a Taylor Swift song. This is along with the Kiss “I Was Made for Loving You” song blasted out from the beginning. There are various attempts to bring forward images and ideas from the 80s (like a reference to Miami Vice) and other homages to the time, but it literally falls flat. The underlying premise falls flat because we don’t really have much of a connection with the actors except the goodwill that they have brought from other, better roles. Gosling does have comedic talent in roles like Nice Guys from 2016, but I don’t chuckle once here. It was a rolling of the eyes, and then looking to the ceiling as more cheesey lines and silly plot lines are delivered. I am ashamed and sad that I was brought into the theatre to see this. Maybe Gosling and Blunt wanted an excuse to have a paid vacation in Australia. As a movie goer I am surprised that all those involved in this don’t open their cheque books and refund those who spend money to watch it.
Note that if you choose to go, you will get a major easter egg at the end of the credits much like a Ferris Bueller type end. You have been warned as it answers a question that no one ever even wanted to ask…you’ll know when you see it. But this is a hard pass for me. One can be hopeful that more in-theatre releases coming soon like Kingdon of the Planet of the Apes is better than this clunker. Has there been a decent stunt guy related movie? Yes, check out The Stunt Man with Peter O’Toole from 1980.
Mondays With Robbie 