The only thing better than getting to spend time in a movie theater on a half-day off is to spend that same time with your spouse in a movie theater. Yes, we had the chance to do a rare day date, so we took the opportunity to see this together. After all, what else do you do on a rainy half day off? Before I get to the part where I start to spoil the movie, just a quick note to tell you that my wife absolutely loved this movie. She walked out of the theater saying that it might be one of her new favorites. I will let you know if I agree with her or not down below. But before I do, it’s getting ready to be spoiler time, so if you would rather come back later, you can still take some time to read some of my other movie reviews here. If you’ve seen it or don’t care, then let’s continue…
“The Fall Guy” is actually directed by former stunt guy David Leitch which is fun, it makes me wonder how much of the stunt portion of this movie is a real “behind the scenes” look. He is still fairly new in the Director’s chair but has a few hits already on his resume (Bullet Train is my personal favorite of his). The film starts out with a voice-over by Ryan Gosling’s stuntman Colt Seavers as he hashes out the events that took place 18 months prior leading up to his accident where he broke his back during a stunt. This backstory includes the romantic fling between himself and Emily Blunt’s Jody Moreno, who was a camera operator back then.
Fast-forward to current times and Colt is down on his luck and working a shitty job as a valet driver. But out of the blue, he receives a call from Gail (played by Hannah Waddingham) about needing him to return to work as a stuntman. At first, he refuses, but after he finds out Jody is the one directing the movie, he reluctantly comes back only to later find out that Jody didn’t know anything about it. She is surprised to see him and this starts a funny back and forth about the last few months since they have been apart. I really enjoyed the Blunt/Gosling “rivalry” when they were on opposite sides of the Oppenheimer/Barbie discussions, so it was fun to see them play off each other here.
This is where the story starts to take a turn. Gail sends Colt on a secret mission to find the movie’s star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who has been missing for days. At this point, he is bounced from place to place including Tom’s apartment trying to track him down, all while doing his stunts for the move as well. Colt eventually enlists the help of his friend and stunt coordinator, Dan Tucker (Winston Duke). Dan was probably my favorite character in this film. The way he could be the best partner-in-crime and hold his own in a fight was fun to see. The result of all his running around? He finds a dead body in a bathtub.
Things now start to spiral out of control. He and Jody are starting to rekindle their relationship, but he keeps missing out because he’s out trying to find Tom. He finds Tom’s phone, then he and Dan get caught in a fight at Tom’s apartment. Everything leads up to him discovering that Tom was the person who killed someone and that Gail was trying to help him cover it up. Colt gets framed for the murder and Jody’s movie might not get to finish.
Honestly, as fun as this movie was, the side-story with the dead body and the coverup got complicated and may get lost to some viewers. Him being a stuntman, did help the fight scenes seem more realistic which was fun and made me wonder if a stuntman could really fight that great in real life. Colt winds up sneaking into Jody’s trailer, tells her the whole thing and they end up putting together a fun scheme to catch Tom confessing that he was the real killer. It all plays out mostly perfectly as they get the evidence they need against Tom and Gail, plus they end up back together.
Overall, this was a fun movie. Do I agree with my wife that it’s one of the best? No, but I did enjoy it very much. It was loaded with action, plenty of comedy, a great cast, and even some love if that’s your sort of thing. I sat down and was entertained for two hours and that is the ultimate goal of a movie, isn’t it? I highly recommend this and I myself will give it an 8 out of 10.
If you’ve seen it, what is your opinion of it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments and join me here again next week for some more mindless movie fun.
