Can't Help Falling

With all of the weak movies from Netflix and the other streaming platforms, The Fall Guy (2024) gets it right. It's not a great movie, but compared to a lot of the action movies these guys make, it's a masterpiece. 

Ryan Gosling (or Reynolds? No. Gosling) is the titular fall guy, a stuntman, doubling Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who I kept calling Anya Taylor-Joy). He is having a great life, in love with camera operator Emily Blunt. But a fall stunt that goes a little too fast breaks his back and he retreats from his friends and his business.

Months later, he is living in a dumpy apartment, working as a parking valet for a Mexican restaurant. He gets a call from producer Hannah Waddington. Blunt has achieved her dream of becoming director, and she wants Gosling one the stunt team in Australia. So he burns rubber (of a car he has parked) and bridges and heads out.

When he gets there, Blunt isn't happy to see him. It turns out that Waddington was lying, and now the ex-lovers, director and stuntman, have to work out a professional relationship on set over megaphones. So far, a pretty standard rom-com setup.

But the premise of the TV series this is loosely based on is that the stuntman uses his stunt powers to fight crime. When does Gosling start to fight crime? Well, the reason that Waddington called on him is that Blunt's star, Taylor-Johnson, has gone missing. Maybe his stunt double can find him, and save Blunt's dream project.

His first clue leads him to a club. and Taylor-Johnson's drug dealer, who immediately spikes Gosling's drink with a hallucinogen. Should have gone with a sedative, because he can still fight while hallucinating. This was a fun section - Gosling doing all kinds of wild action while out of his mind. Even when he's back on an even keel, there's still a unicorn hanging around.

I like the way this movie perfectly matches action and rom-com beats, especially with Blunt as the girl. She's smart, ambitious, independent, and Gosling loves and respects her for this. When the whole plot unravels, she is ready to give up on her first movie, but Gosling insists that she finish and use their combined director/stuntman powers to put everything right. 

There are also a few (just a few) cute meta touches. Like the writer comes up to Blunt with an idea: How about solving the problem with the third act by having the movie within the movie have probleks with the third act? Blunt says, no, we won't be doing that. And they don't!

The stunts were pretty great, including some "cannon rolls". If you watch the "Making of" feature for the Rogen Green Hornet, you can find out more about this. Like that movie, they avoided CGI as much as possible here. There is also a meta-joke about Taylor-Johnson lying about doing his own stunts - but they don't really give much credit for Gosling's doubles.

Back in the day, we tried to watch the TV series this was based on, starring Lee Majors. We gave up - there just weren't enough stunts. This movie did not have this problem, plus it had Emily Blunt.