My favorite cinematic universe is shaping up to be the one in which Ryan Gosling plays a stuntman. There are currently only two movies like this but weird that it happened twice! What makes The Fall Guy stand out though is David Leitch’s ability to weave in romance with the action.
Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is a stuntman who has a relationship with a DP named Judy Moreno (Emily Blunt) when an accident takes him out of the game. But when Judy has her shot at directing her first feature, someone is playing games, bringing Colt to the set in his return to being a stuntman.
It’d be so easy to make The Fall Guy about the action sequences and nothing more. As a super fan of Drive, I will watch Gosling flip cars for all my days. But that’s not what this movie focuses on. Instead, the big jumps and tricks that the stunt men and women do are rooted in Colt Seavers trying to fix a relationship that he broke. Well, that and the mystery of what happened to Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
For all its action-packed moments, there are softer instances, like when Colt is sobbing to a Taylor Swift song in the car because he thinks no one can see him. Every time we see a car lit on fire driving off some cliff, we also see a man who is trying to replace a love in his life that he let go. The mystery of Tom Ryder and why Colt is in Australia to shoot the movie keeps the plot driving forward but The Fall Guy is carried by Blunt and Gosling’s ability to bring a sincerity to two characters in the midst of out-of-this-world action.
Comedy is so back
Leitch made his career by mixing action with romance. Look to movies like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and even Deadpool 2 to understand his tone. But with The Fall Guy, he struck gold with Cold Seavers. Yes, the movie had the groundwork laid out for it from the 1981 television series of the same name but that doesn’t mean that Leitch’s vision and Drew Pearce’s script relied too heavily on it.
In fact, this film is completely its own beast and the better for it. Finding the balance between the stunt work and the romance isn’t easy but then they have Judy catching Colt on fire repeatedly just to get back at him for shutting her out and you realize how perfect that action/romance blend is.
Gosling is back in his comedy era (having proven to audiences time and time again how funny he can be, even prior to his Barbie success) and to see him tackle a stuntman again but with a comedic edge really just works for me. He previously played a stunt performer in Drive but that movie wasn’t leaving you laughing in your seat like The Fall Guy will.
You’ll go for the stunts but stay for Gosling and Blunt falling in love and it is definitely going to be one of the best times you’ll have in the theaters this year. The Fall Guy hits theaters on May 3rd.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
