A game Ryan Gosling cannot save The Fall Guy from falling flat on its face, with a lack of chemistry between its leads and convoluted plot robbing what could have been a fun action comedy.
File The Fall Guy under “fun to make; not fun to watch”. Filmed in Sydney, Australia (the numerous shots of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge is a constant reminder), the David Leitch (Bullet Train) directed The Fall Guy is an example of trying to do too much with too little.
The elements were there for something better. Ryan Gosling stars as Colt Seavers, a hotshot stunt man to egocentric superstar actor Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who after breaking his back on a stunt gone wrong steps away from the industry. When Colt is convinced to work on Ryder’s latest film directed by his former flame Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) he is drawn into a murder mystery where he is the prime suspect.
Leitch – who previously worked as a stuntman on films such as The Matrix Reloaded and The Bourne Ultimatum – uses this adaptation of popular 1980s TV show The Fall Guy as a love letter to stunt performers who have long been overlooked in their industry, and the constant jabs at an industry filled with egotistical stars and over caffeinated producers can be fun to watch.
Yet at two hours and six minutes, The Fall Guy is not able to sustain the energy of its pacing, nor intrigue for its central plot that recycles the same old man-on-the-run story mechanisms seen in Knight and Day, The Bounty Hunter and a dozen more. Leitch, meanwhile, can’t decide whether he is making a spy-action movie or a parody of a spy-action movie, with the films over the top action scenes taking the notion of stuntmen being real-life superheroes to ridiculous heights. The less said about the comedy – which ranges from mildly amusing too forgettable – the better.
Gosling, for his part, does his best to deliver an entertaining performance, yet it is one that continues a troubling trend for the Oscar nominated actor who over the last few years has increasingly leaned more into shtick. Where contemporaries such as Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver have thrived while working with heavyweight filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee (respectively), Gosling seems to be coasting on projects suited for more lesser skilled actors.
Blunt, meanwhile, can’t do much with an underwritten part that requires her to constantly look lovelorn and not much else. A lack of chemistry between Blunt and Gosling speaks to a lack of groundwork in an action rom-com that overdoes the former and skimps on the latter, with The Fall Guy again proving that the rom-com has fallen.
