The Fall Guy is a well-intentioned bore
★★ | Missed it by that much
The Fall Guy | David Leitch | ★★
There’s a heartfelt message behind The Fall Guy: Stunt actors are undervalued and unrecognized by both the industry and the viewers. They’re professional artists who risk their lives to create spectacles, and rarely do they receive any accolades for making others look cool.
The film around that message is, sadly, uninteresting. It’s the kind of project I found myself working overtime to like, and failing to enjoy. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are immensely likeable as the leading lovers, Hannah Waddingham is a treat as the duplicitous producer, and for the most part it’s all breezy, old-fashioned fun.
But it tries so hard to be a Shane Black production without actually having Black involved, that it actively hurts the big picture. From the smarmy fourth wall breaking narration (which bizarrely happens only at the beginning and end) to the glib references to other iconic action films, The Fall Guy feels like a karaoke piece rather than a new addition to the pantheon.
Ironically enough, there’s even a scene where Waddingham comments how she dislikes karaoke. “Who wouldn’t love to hear their favorite songs ruined by others?” And that’s sort of how the film itself feels.
Which doesn’t take away from the stunts, that are the highlight and point of the entire thing. Each one of them is worth gawking over. From crazy boat stunts to people dangling off helicopters, The Fall Guy is at its best when it doesn’t even pretend to be anything but a collection of set pieces. And that’s perfectly fine. Jackie Chan built a career on that.
But at two hours in length, the spectacle doesn’t carry all the way. Especially when it’s saddled with the baggage of a convoluted plot involving another Shane Black-esque cover up, murder, and a bizarre drug sequence, complete with unicorns. Like previous Leitch projects, it’s like the director doesn’t have the faith that people will be fine with just the action. So he spins even more plates to make up for something that didn’t need fixing.
By the time the final showdown comes to a close, The Fall Guy has outlived its welcome by a good 20 minutes. It drags itself to the finish line simply on the charisma of its leading couple, who do their level best at making even the cringiest material work. And yet, I still found the bromance in The Nice Guys more affecting.
The Fall Guy is decent popcorn fun, and that’s sometimes all you can ask from something like this. It’s not wildly original, and you’ll probably forget all about within hours of viewing. But it’s not hateful, and there’s actually something endearing about its goofball attitude. Which makes me wish even more that I liked it better.
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