With the notable exception of \u201cBarbie,\u201d the modern blockbuster can be pretty serious stuff. Whether it\u2019s the dense lore and\u00a0world-building of \u201cDune\u201d or \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water,\u201d or the self-serious connected universe of the MCU, blockbusters have often felt like work lately too. This is not to say that some of these films aren\u2019t masterful, only that there\u2019s been a dearth of old-fashioned entertainment, the kind of Hollywood productions designed to entertain above all else. A movie where you don’t need to take notes or have seen the ones that came before it.\u00a0\u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d wants to entertain you. It wants to put the blinding star power of two of the industry\u2019s most charismatic leads in fun, romantic situations and see what happens. It wants to remind viewers of a time when stunt work mattered more than it does in the CGI era, and embrace the team aspect of filmmaking in a manner that\u2019s infectious and, well, wildly entertaining. This is a ridiculously fun movie, anchored by a movie star in a part that fits him perfectly and a director who really has been working toward this film for his entire career.<\/p>\n
David Leitch started as a stunt double, working with actors like Brad Pitt, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Matt Damon, and many more. His directorial debut was a little film called \u201cJohn Wick,\u201d and he parlayed that success into films like \u201cAtomic Blonde\u201d and \u201cBullet Train.\u201d He returns to his roots in \u201cThe Fall Guy,\u201d inspired by the Lee Majors show of the same name about a Hollywood stuntman who happened to also be a bounty hunter. Little narrative DNA is shared with the show beyond a profession and a name, but the 2024 \u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d does have the general tone of \u201880s television in the way it blends a bit of humor, romance, mystery, and action into the mix, willing to drop references to the action stars that inspired it while also carving out its own personality. <\/p>\n
Ryan Gosling is ridiculously charismatic as the new Colt Seavers, giving one of those broadly magnetic performances that made him so likable in films like \u201cThe Nice Guys\u201d but also leaning on some acting chops and intensity that should remind fans of his iconic turn in \u201cDrive.\u201d \u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d is very much about\u00a0the people behind the scenes of the movie industry, but it\u2019s almost more of an ode to the era of the movie star, when a performer could hold a viewer over any narrative speedbump. Mostly for the better, Hollywood shifted to a story-and concept-driven approach to moviemaking, but Leitch and the team behind \u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d clearly remember when a superstar who was both sexy and funny\u2014think Burt Reynolds at his peak\u2014could be more than enough. Gosling has that easy-going charm. When he was singing \u201cI\u2019m Just Ken\u201d at the Oscars, the man next to me at the bar at which I was watching it at SXSW, said, \u201cI\u2019m almost annoyed at how that guy can do anything.\u201d \u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d proves again the last five words of that statement true. <\/p>\n
Colt is introduced on set as the double to a diva action star named Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, doing enough of a blend between Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and even Matthew McConaughey that he seems right without ever feeling like he\u2019s specifically ripping on one actor). When a fall goes horribly wrong, Colt is sidelined for 18 months, leaving behind his girlfriend Jody (Emily Blunt) and maybe the industry for good. When Jody\u2019s producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) comes to Colt to beg him to double Ryder again on the set of Jody\u2019s directorial debut, Colt relents. The first act of \u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d basically plays like a romantic comedy as Jody berates Colt for running from their relationship\u00a0after his accident in a great scene in front of a lot of cast and crew\u2014it feels like a reminder of how little privacy there is on a movie set\u2014and then the script by Drew Pearce pivots into mystery and action when Ryder goes missing. Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, Teresa Palmer, and a French-speaking action dog round out a great cast. More needle drops from the era of the show, including recurring use of the very recognizable riff of \u201cI Was Made for Lovin\u2019 You\u201d by KISS, feel like a nod to both the era of the original series and when they made more action-rom-coms like this in Hollywood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the notable exception of \u201cBarbie,\u201d the modern blockbuster can be pretty serious stuff. Whether it\u2019s the dense lore and\u00a0world-building of \u201cDune\u201d or \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water,\u201d or the self-serious connected universe of the MCU, blockbusters have often felt like work lately too. This is not to say that some of these films aren\u2019t …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[36,35,33],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-movies","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-comedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}