| Ryan Gosling has been one of my favorite actors for a while, and the last few years have just been AWESOME. Between the Gray Man (2022) and BARBIE (2023), this has just been an absolutely glorious era that is continuously getting even more amazing. The Fall Guy is an Epic Rom-Action Comedy that utterly solidifies the genre into a staple of the cinematic ecological system. It is an ode to the art of film-making, a call-to-action on the front of respecting the unsung heroes of movie-making that go unappreciated at the Oscars, and a delightful romp through the genres of murder mystery, love story, sports-redemption saga, and meta-media philosophical dialogue. Directed by David Leitch, Written by Drew Pearce, and based in spirit on Glen Larson's 1980's TV series, The Fall Guy stars an excellent mix of Big Names from the present, Key Figures from the past, and several up-and-coming stars. Ryan Gosling and Emily blunt are the two primary figures and they are glorious. They have fantastic chemistry and both bring such skillful talent and excellently playful attitudes to the process that sticking them together and letting them riff for a while inevitably ends up with a plethora of eminently useful material. |  |
The story follows Colt Seavers, Stuntman, in a comeback after having been taken out of the game by a traumatic injury following a stunt-gone-wrong. He'd been in a relationship with the wonderfully supportive Jody Moreno, whom he basically ghosted in the aftermath of the accident due to the kind of culturally ingrained machismo that makes male-weakness into something abhorrent and meant to be hidden (especially from a man whose literal job is to be stoic and strong in the face of getting beat-on). In the midst of trying to do his action-hero stand-in day job, Colt is trying to win back the love of his life, save her movie from catastrophic collapse, and figure out what's happened to the man he is meant to double.
Literally everything about this movie is spectacular.
It is the first movie in.... years that has prompted me to buy a physical copy. There's an extended edition and I just NEEDED to see it. (Honestly, the Theatrical Cut is genuinely better, and unless you're a hyper-focused weird little obsessive like myself, you might not even notice most of the tiny changes, and the 2 big sequences left in are really better cut. But I quite liked it.)
The plotting and editing of the final Theatrical Cut is just SO tight and beautifully structured. It's seriously amazing, like Chekov's Nesting Doll of Knives at a Gun Fight level setups and gloriously satisfying follow-throughs. Every shot, every prop, every line of dialogue is a reference, a setup for a later twist, or an astute moment of character/relationship building, and most of them are more than one of those at once!
The acting is FABULOUS. It's basically a Ryan Gosling Epicness Vehicle, with some shiny stunts and plot on the side. His performance here is truly spectacular, deeply believable, and intimately moving as the blithe introspection of self-deprecating humor Colt Seavers embodies is forced into a more genuine reflectivity and honesty. Gosling nails it, every single second of it.
Emily Blunt is being less praised, and even my own friend-group is split, but I found her DELIGHTFUL. She's an excellently accurate and subtle depiction of Neurodivergence in action, and I firmly believe in the intentionality of that depiction due to the visual references of Gretta Gerwig (which Blunt & Leitch have both confirmed as being intentional, most people have called it a throw-back to Barbie for Gosling's other recent big hit, but there were easier ways to do that, and Gerwig is openly AutADHD.) I found her to be believable and honest in her depiction and I think the representation of it specifically ought to be split into an entirely separate essay...
ANYWAY. The 2 stars are spectacular, the supporting actors are all equally delightful and gloriously effective in their roles of elevating the main 2, and even the bit characters are truly charming.
The lighting design is spectacular, swinging wildly between varied arrays and color palette-highlights to suit each and every classically defined genre it sticks its toes into, while somehow magically remaining perfectly consistent (yellow, blue, orange, green, and purple can obviously be used a staggering number of ways, but I've never seen it done with so many radically varied implementations in a single film).
The sound design is just as impressive as the lighting design. Dominic Lewis is the man behind the score. I'm only very tangentially familiar with him, but I'm exceedingly pleased with this movie and will be following him closely in the future. The score for the Fall Guy keeps close to the 80's roots, with key themes and samples coming from Kiss and Journey, with a bit of slick modern spy-thriller and cutesy Y2k rom-com tossed in for good measure.
And the licensed music? * chef's kiss *
From Taylor Swift to YUNGBLUD, every genre of modern music culture gets touched on. AND there's a car-chase / epic fight-scene supported by the dulcet tones of Phil Collins, which is spectacularly well played off as being perfectly normal and not at a radical choice in any way (and is also one of the VERY best chase/fight scenes I have ever seen).
The cinematography is breath-takingly gorgeous in every respect, and much of it is actively discussed within the film itself without even needing to break the 4th wall.
The special effects, covering stunts, SFX & VFX, and editing tricks and choices, is all exceedingly well executed. The fight scenes are all beautifully choreographed, arranged into narratively functional sequences, and just brilliantly executed and spectacularly well-captured. The action-y climbing / falling / creative transportation / chase scenes are all deliciously unique and excellently showcased. It definitely sings through clearly the entire film that David Leitch is a former stuntman himself. All of it is lovingly arranged and captured with care and creativity.
This film is truly a love-letter to movie-making with special reverence given to all the elements of a movie that don't get the kind of love and fan-support that the lead acting talent does.
Honestly, this movie is just brilliant.
It raises awareness of the plight of Stunts teams, it explicitly addresses the persisting problems of the Patriarchy, it depicts a thoroughly engaging love-story with diverse personality (and neurodivergence) representation within the romance and among the friends / support-system), AND it's hysterically funny while directly engaging with the utterly tragic way that Capitalism functionally mandates that some people will be treated as expendable.
It passes the Bechdel Test, it passes the Reverse Bechdel Test, it passes the Mako Mori Test...
AND it passes the Ellen Willis Test, the Pierce Test, the Sexy Lamp Test, the Villarreal Test, the Tauriel Test, the Maisy Test, the Tourist Test (definitely for LA, and less definitively, but still passing, for Sydney) and it even measures up to Deggan's Rule (if only by default in that more 25% of the 'main cast' is person-of-color in a non-race-focused narrative, 2 out of 7 isn't great representation, but there's plenty of representation in the smaller parts and technically 29% of the main cast is PoC, and there's an argument for it being 3/8 depending on your definition of 'main').
(It, admittedly, does not pass any significant LGBTQ+ benchmarks, but like it's doing a helluva lot of work on other fronts and while I think LGBTQ+ rep is intrinsically important to a healthy media ecosystem... a single movie should not be held responsible for forward progress on literally everything... And it doesn't not pass some of them, it just doesn't have time to explore or address them directly. I would argue that Gail's PA is Queer Rep... what kind of queer, idk, but that person is present in a visibly significant role that is narratively infinitesimal... Along with that person, there are plenty of other blink-quick opportunities for fanwork to have a lot of play in expanding upon.)
((It also can't pass things like the Waithe Test or the Villalobos Test, because there simply aren't enough characters to make addressing such requirements viable, let alone doing so within the context of an already wildly complicated narrative.))
Considering how it's just a single movie and there's only so much one can expect from a little over 2hrs of media content, it achieves a helluva lot towards promoting equity, equality, and excellence in pop-cultural storytelling spheres.
THERE'S EVEN A DOG, who LIVES, and has a pivotal role in being both action hero side kick and rom-com set piece.
In short, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Seriously, EVERYONE should go watch this movie ASAP.
It is a little dicey on the kid-friendly front. There's no sex or anything worrisome on that front. And there's an argument that it's a fairly realistic look at the physical cost of being an action-hero so there's some merit potentially in showing the injury-inevitable side of things to kids who might be a bit too wild? There are drug dealers (who are represented as the bad guys), drug users (also bad guys), a wee bit of off-screen torture, and some cursing (but, like, all in very reasonable circumstances). The PG-13 rating is perfectly suitable and put in place with cause, but I do think that there's an awful lot of room for parental discretion, more so than on many other PG-13 films.
Literally everything about this movie is spectacular.
It is the first movie in.... years that has prompted me to buy a physical copy. There's an extended edition and I just NEEDED to see it. (Honestly, the Theatrical Cut is genuinely better, and unless you're a hyper-focused weird little obsessive like myself, you might not even notice most of the tiny changes, and the 2 big sequences left in are really better cut. But I quite liked it.)
The plotting and editing of the final Theatrical Cut is just SO tight and beautifully structured. It's seriously amazing, like Chekov's Nesting Doll of Knives at a Gun Fight level setups and gloriously satisfying follow-throughs. Every shot, every prop, every line of dialogue is a reference, a setup for a later twist, or an astute moment of character/relationship building, and most of them are more than one of those at once!
The acting is FABULOUS. It's basically a Ryan Gosling Epicness Vehicle, with some shiny stunts and plot on the side. His performance here is truly spectacular, deeply believable, and intimately moving as the blithe introspection of self-deprecating humor Colt Seavers embodies is forced into a more genuine reflectivity and honesty. Gosling nails it, every single second of it.
Emily Blunt is being less praised, and even my own friend-group is split, but I found her DELIGHTFUL. She's an excellently accurate and subtle depiction of Neurodivergence in action, and I firmly believe in the intentionality of that depiction due to the visual references of Gretta Gerwig (which Blunt & Leitch have both confirmed as being intentional, most people have called it a throw-back to Barbie for Gosling's other recent big hit, but there were easier ways to do that, and Gerwig is openly AutADHD.) I found her to be believable and honest in her depiction and I think the representation of it specifically ought to be split into an entirely separate essay...
ANYWAY. The 2 stars are spectacular, the supporting actors are all equally delightful and gloriously effective in their roles of elevating the main 2, and even the bit characters are truly charming.
The lighting design is spectacular, swinging wildly between varied arrays and color palette-highlights to suit each and every classically defined genre it sticks its toes into, while somehow magically remaining perfectly consistent (yellow, blue, orange, green, and purple can obviously be used a staggering number of ways, but I've never seen it done with so many radically varied implementations in a single film).
The sound design is just as impressive as the lighting design. Dominic Lewis is the man behind the score. I'm only very tangentially familiar with him, but I'm exceedingly pleased with this movie and will be following him closely in the future. The score for the Fall Guy keeps close to the 80's roots, with key themes and samples coming from Kiss and Journey, with a bit of slick modern spy-thriller and cutesy Y2k rom-com tossed in for good measure.
And the licensed music? * chef's kiss *
From Taylor Swift to YUNGBLUD, every genre of modern music culture gets touched on. AND there's a car-chase / epic fight-scene supported by the dulcet tones of Phil Collins, which is spectacularly well played off as being perfectly normal and not at a radical choice in any way (and is also one of the VERY best chase/fight scenes I have ever seen).
The cinematography is breath-takingly gorgeous in every respect, and much of it is actively discussed within the film itself without even needing to break the 4th wall.
The special effects, covering stunts, SFX & VFX, and editing tricks and choices, is all exceedingly well executed. The fight scenes are all beautifully choreographed, arranged into narratively functional sequences, and just brilliantly executed and spectacularly well-captured. The action-y climbing / falling / creative transportation / chase scenes are all deliciously unique and excellently showcased. It definitely sings through clearly the entire film that David Leitch is a former stuntman himself. All of it is lovingly arranged and captured with care and creativity.
This film is truly a love-letter to movie-making with special reverence given to all the elements of a movie that don't get the kind of love and fan-support that the lead acting talent does.
Honestly, this movie is just brilliant.
It raises awareness of the plight of Stunts teams, it explicitly addresses the persisting problems of the Patriarchy, it depicts a thoroughly engaging love-story with diverse personality (and neurodivergence) representation within the romance and among the friends / support-system), AND it's hysterically funny while directly engaging with the utterly tragic way that Capitalism functionally mandates that some people will be treated as expendable.
It passes the Bechdel Test, it passes the Reverse Bechdel Test, it passes the Mako Mori Test...
AND it passes the Ellen Willis Test, the Pierce Test, the Sexy Lamp Test, the Villarreal Test, the Tauriel Test, the Maisy Test, the Tourist Test (definitely for LA, and less definitively, but still passing, for Sydney) and it even measures up to Deggan's Rule (if only by default in that more 25% of the 'main cast' is person-of-color in a non-race-focused narrative, 2 out of 7 isn't great representation, but there's plenty of representation in the smaller parts and technically 29% of the main cast is PoC, and there's an argument for it being 3/8 depending on your definition of 'main').
(It, admittedly, does not pass any significant LGBTQ+ benchmarks, but like it's doing a helluva lot of work on other fronts and while I think LGBTQ+ rep is intrinsically important to a healthy media ecosystem... a single movie should not be held responsible for forward progress on literally everything... And it doesn't not pass some of them, it just doesn't have time to explore or address them directly. I would argue that Gail's PA is Queer Rep... what kind of queer, idk, but that person is present in a visibly significant role that is narratively infinitesimal... Along with that person, there are plenty of other blink-quick opportunities for fanwork to have a lot of play in expanding upon.)
((It also can't pass things like the Waithe Test or the Villalobos Test, because there simply aren't enough characters to make addressing such requirements viable, let alone doing so within the context of an already wildly complicated narrative.))
Considering how it's just a single movie and there's only so much one can expect from a little over 2hrs of media content, it achieves a helluva lot towards promoting equity, equality, and excellence in pop-cultural storytelling spheres.
THERE'S EVEN A DOG, who LIVES, and has a pivotal role in being both action hero side kick and rom-com set piece.
In short, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Seriously, EVERYONE should go watch this movie ASAP.
It is a little dicey on the kid-friendly front. There's no sex or anything worrisome on that front. And there's an argument that it's a fairly realistic look at the physical cost of being an action-hero so there's some merit potentially in showing the injury-inevitable side of things to kids who might be a bit too wild? There are drug dealers (who are represented as the bad guys), drug users (also bad guys), a wee bit of off-screen torture, and some cursing (but, like, all in very reasonable circumstances). The PG-13 rating is perfectly suitable and put in place with cause, but I do think that there's an awful lot of room for parental discretion, more so than on many other PG-13 films.
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