THE FALL GUY REVIEW: Behind the Scenes of This Year's Most Explosive Movie

I just saw Universal’s new movie The Fall Guy, which I didn’t even really think I was going to like - I’m not a big action fan - and I LOVED it. I really haven’t heard people talking about this movie and if I have, I haven’t heard great things. I don’t know anyone yet who has even seen The Fall Guy, and I think everyone is making a mistake. I’m going to tell you all about this movie and I’m going to tell you why you should see it.

The Fall Guy should be the movie of summer. It has everything: a love story, action, comedy, stunts, and cameos. Photo: © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved. Image retrieved from: IMDb

The Fall Guy stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It is comedy action, really heavy emphasis on both, but it’s the action that’s supposed to be the star. If you see this movie in theaters - I assume this will only be in theaters - director David Leitch, who was once a stunt man himself, and Ryan Gosling give an intro where they quip about not using your cell phone in the theater. David Leitch then explains that this movie is supposed to be a love letter to stuntmen, who are one of the unsung heroes of the film industry. Most people can hardly name one or two stunt actors unless they’ve made the transition to being an actor. These performers are risking their bodies and their lives every single day just to give us a better show, and it’s a really selfless act in many ways. Stunt performers should get more love and this movie is a fantastic showcase for all of the amazing things they do, and just how amazingly they do them.

The Fall Guy is also really “meta.” It’s very self-referential and references the film business as a whole so much, which makes it really fun - especially for somebody like me who loves the film industry and who loves getting those looks behind-the-scenes. The whole movie felt like an inside joke at times, which made it so much more fun to watch.

In The Fall Guy, Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stunt man who gets injured, and gets a job on a movie in Australia, being directed by his love interest, Emily Blunt. While he’s out there, he finds out that the lead of the film is missing and he gets put on double duty figuring out what happened to the actor. His daytime hours are filled with the film stunts, and his nighttime hours are filled with “real” stunts, navigating all the shady characters who might be involved in the actor’s disappearance.

The whole movie [The Fall Guy] felt kind of like an inside joke at times, which just made it so much more fun to watch. Photo: © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

From the intro alone, with David Leitch and Ryan Gosling, I was primed and ready to watch the movie. Something about it set the tone. And then the opening scene totally sold it for me. I think big credit for that goes to Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, who had the most palpable chemistry I’ve ever seen. I instantly wanted them to be together. They ooze so much charm! It’s funny because I think about these sparks that I see flying between them, but in that opening scene, 70% of it is just happening through walkie-talkie. So ostensibly, they weren’t even in the same room together, but I could feel it between them. I suppose that speaks to how good they both are as actors.

Again, this movie is really a love letter to stunt performers. There are so many stunts in this movie. There’s fighting - fighting with swords, fighting with guns, fighting each other, getting thrown through walls and off of balconies. There are helicopters, and boats, and car and truck chases. They won a Guinness world record for the most number of car flips, which was eight and a half - so that’s incredible.

Ryan Gosling as Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy. Photo: © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

This movie also had the first person with a designation by the Screen Actors Guild and the Director’s Guild of America as “Stunt Designer.” This designation is an elevation that speaks to the coordination, the choreography, and the conceptualization of it all. That it’s not just setting somebody on fire or not just the execution of a stunt, but it’s conceptualizing it across the entire film. I thought it was incredibly done. Stunts and stunt performers are not recognized at the Oscars yet - there’s no Oscar award for stunt performers and I do hope that maybe this will be a step closer.

One argument against recognizing stunts at the Academy Awards is that stunt performers may be put to extremes in order to win the awards, and their safety might be put at risk. I do understand that. On the other side, some people argue that the Oscars are already too long and it’s not worth the time. That’s a little infuriating to hear - especially when you remember that stunt performers are risking their lives every single day. I do hope that we’re able to find good ways to recognize stunt performers going forward. In the meantime, seeing The Fall Guy is a great first step to showing your appreciation for stunt performers.

I’m not sure who the credit goes to here, but one thing that really sold me on this movie - especially being such a fantastical action movie - is how grounded so much of it was. I think it elevated the comedy of it. The actor’s might give a line - and the line could be as simple as “A lot of running around, Gail” - but it was said in such a truthful way - not slapstick, not absurdist - that I found myself laughing through the film so much. Sometimes, there were also absurdist lines, things like “Doone’s goons who dirtied my Shirley”, which is absurd, but again, it was said in such truth, that it didn’t feel absurd.

Emily Blunt played Jody Moreno in The Fall Guy. Photo: © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

I think I’m the first one to talk about when things feel shoehorned in. (You all could vouch for me saying that in other movies.) This was a movie where so much could have felt shoehorned in, because some of the things they were saying were ridiculous, and somehow it didn’t. Emily Blunt has a very genuine, touching conversation in one scene, but she’s wearing half an alien costume with a giant hand, and it should have been ridiculous, but it wasn’t.

I also want to give credit across the board in a really good way. It didn’t just feel like the stunts that were highlighted. Yes, the stunts and stunt performers were the absolute star of this movie, but in every category everything was consistently good, the soundtrack, the score, the sound design, the set design, the costumes. This should be the movie of summer! I don’t know why no one is talking about it, it’s so good. The acting is good, the stunts are great, the movie is fun, the plot is good, it doesn’t go too off the rails, it has a great story. It’s so Meta. Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood. I really don’t understand where the movie has gone wrong and why people aren’t flocking to see this film. I hope my review is enough to encourage others to see it because it’s really that good.

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt interview with Entertainment’s Kim Holcomb.

Photo retrieved from: www.king5.com

I can only imagine this was a fantastic set to be on, not just because Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling have such great reputations in Hollywood - from everything I’ve ever heard they’re wonderful, fantastic, hilarious people - but also because of all the things that make this movie great. The fun costumes, the hilarious lines, the great cameos that they had. Of course, the action and the stunts. I just wish that I could have worked on this movie or been a fly on the wall.

I feel like because my channel is history based, I should add a little bit about the background of this film, which is that it is loosely based on a 1980s TV show called The Fall Guy, which starred Lee Majors. It was about a stunt man who, at night, moon shadows as a bounty hunter. I unfortunately can’t speak much to the history of the show though, I’ve only seen half an episode, but know that this movie doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the old TV show.

You can go into this movie totally blind to The Fall Guy from the 1980s. You will enjoy it, you will thank me, I absolutely know it. In fact, I want all of you to go watch now and then come back and tell me that I was right, and you love this movie and then I want to see this movie go to number one if its not there already. I don’t even know how it’s doing, but it can’t be number one because I don’t know anyone who’s seen it. So go see it right now!