Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
‘The Fall Guy’ is a meta, almost parody action-comedy-romance, where it delivers some great over-the-top action sequence, minimal romance, with some hit-and-miss jokes.
Directed by David Leitch (Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde), ‘The Fall Guy’ follows stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) as he takes a break from his Hollywood career after a serious on-set accident while performing stunts for superstar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, in what might be a Tom Cruise spoof), which also means putting an abrupt end to his blooming romance with Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), an ambitious camerawoman.
But over a year later, when Colt gets a call from producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) about Jody specifically requesting him to perform stunts for her big debut sci-fi film starring Tom. Even though he has zero interest in putting his life in danger again or working for an egomaniac like Tom, Colt returns to the set for a second shot at love, only to find himself entangled in a messy conspiracy involving the lead star. Instead of sipping Piña-coladas with Jody, Colt finds himself chasing crazy drug dealers, thugs, and other shady people.
Look, ‘The Fall Guy’ is a big-budget spectacle with grand sci-fi sets, with obvious comedic nods to hits like ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ and ‘Dune’ (or well good old Star Wars), and major star power in Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. But some of the music choices during action scenes are downright bizarre, watching Colt pull off high-octane stunts to a sad love song isn’t funny, it’s just irritating. Although it was definitely fun every time Kiss’ hit song ‘I was made for loving you baby’ played through the runtime.
Also, Emily Blunt is so much more entertaining as Jody Moreno, a bit of a hopeless romantic, even though she doesn’t give that vibe in her introductory scene. She is nursing a heartache and putting all her grief into her directorial debut, an epic love story between an alien and a human space cowboy. It’s a pity Jody and Colt don’t get more scenes together, because their chemistry is effortlessly cute in the few moments they share on the sets of ‘Metalstorm’, the over-the-top sci-fi epic they’re shooting. The title itself is a wink to the 1983 cult film ‘Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn’, one of those gloriously bad movies that somehow earned a loyal fanbase.
‘The Fall Guy’ starts off brisk and fun, but the second half turns exceedingly dumb, and honestly silliness in a comedy is fun, but some of the sub-plot were more annoying than funny. For instance, Colt ends up as a primary suspect in a murder he has no involvement in, simply because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though he is earlier shown reporting the incident to the police himself. On top of that, the crime happens in a CCTV-covered hotel, so a quick footage check should settle everything. It’s not the only illogical twist (oh there’s a much dumber climactic twist), but fixing this one detail alone would have made a noticeable difference.
All that said, the final few minutes of ‘The Fall Guy’ are hilariously exaggerated, with Colt and Jody teaming up to prove his innocence in the most filmy way possible. Expect exploding cars, pyrotechnics, mid-air action, crazy jumps, and a lot of action mayhem. And of course, there are lots of Easter eggs and pop culture references, some subtle, some more on your nose, like when Stunt co-coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke) directly quotes Rocky to Colt.
In the end, ‘The Fall Guys’ is a fun tribute to hollywood stuntmen, the men who do the real action scenes, risking their lives on sets, so that the lead hero can be Superman, James Bond, or whichever larger-than-life action hero the script demands him to be. It could’ve used more of Emily Blunt though and doesn’t maximize its potential.
You can stream ‘The Fall Guy’ on Prime Video.
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