Sometimes, CGI isn’t the best thing. Look at the scene of the plane crashing into the water of Air Force One or Dwyane Johnson face on a huge scorpion in The Mummy Returns. Bad special effects come in all shapes, sizes and forms. It’s very rare to see a movie that using practical effects most of which are done on camera during filming. Sir Ian McKellan said he broke down doing one of The Hobbit movies because he got bored of being alone on the set talking to something that was supposed to be added in during post-production as a character.
The Fall Guy is an action comedy based on the TV series from the 1980s. And it’s actually one of the best, most fun action movies since Top Gun: Maverick. Maybe that we’re expecting the same old “We’ll fix it in post” mentality that movies have lost their sense of wonder and amazing. Superhero fatigue along with the cheap-looking boredom of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Avatar: The Weight of Water. Yeah, everything looks colorful on screen, but the story is dull.
Maybe it was because Ryan Gosling appeared on the Mickey Mouse Club as a kid that he can show a way to have fun with a character who isn’t all perfect. His performance in the underrated action comedy thriller The Nice Guys seemed he was parodying this Hollywood Heartthrob persona that had been dumped on him in the 2000s. I’ll be blunt and say The Place Behind the Pines wasn’t his best role even though he met long-time partner Eva Mendes on the set. And Drive has divided people for years. Albert Brooks was great though.
Maybe the Oscar buzz around his role as Ken in the Barbie movie was so big that he signed on to do this movie because it seems like the type of movie an actor makes after they usually win an Oscar. It’s not bad by no means. But you can tell, Gosling just wanted to have a helluva time on filming after doing something that was more serious. You can sense in his performance and the cast, which includes Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Hannah Waddingham, went to the set every day bright and early even if they were scheduled to film that day.
Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a seasoned stunt man who mostly works for pampered prima donna star Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson). That is until a stunt fail goes wrong. Colt hurts his back and is dumped by Tom. He also had a budding romance with Jody Moreno who was cutting her teeth being a camera operator, but they split up. Colt has gone to parking cars at a Mexican restaurant.
Eighteen months pass and one day, Gail Meyer (Waddingham), a producer for Tom, says a movie is being filmed in Sydney, Australia and surrounding areas. They want Colt to come back and be Tom’s stuntman again. Also, Jody is helming the movie as director. It’s is called Metalstorm and it’s an alien invasion action thriller.
Tom reconnects with his old friend, Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), who is the stunt coordinator. However, Jody is surprised to see Colt on the set despite that he was told Jody wanted him. It turns out that Gail has an ulterior motive. She believes that Tom is in trouble because he’s gone missing and she wants Colt to track him down. Gail uses the feelings he still has for Jody to convince him unwillingly to see what Tom did because Colt seems to know Tom more than anyone else.
But there’s more to this story that I won’t tell because it works out so wonderful like when you put together a puzzle without much problems. The director helming this movie is David Leitch who assisted Chad Stahelski on the first John Wick movie. He also directed Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde and Bullet Train, all of which I mostly liked. And he directed Hobbs & Shaw, the awkward Fast and Furious spin-off that basically seemed nothing more than an attempt for Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham to show off their machismo.
Both Leitch and Stahelski cut their teeth as stuntmen, so it seems almost natural they’d want to do a movie dedicated to the unsung heroes of movies and TV. It’s probably a good bet the TV show was inspired by the 1978 movie Hooper, which featured Burt Reynolds and Jan-Michael Vincent has two stuntmen who begin a friendly rivalry while working on a James Bond-style thriller. The movie was directed by Hal Needham, a former stuntman himself, who became successful making more action-based movies like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. And Glen A. Larson, the creator of The Fall Guy TV show was notorious around the entertainment industry for more or less stealing ideas and concepts and passing them off as his own.
And just like Needham, Leitch has footage shown over the end credits of some of the stunts or “gags” as they’re also called being filmed and when they go wrong. What I like about this movie is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It almost seems to be making a statement about the current level of movies. What we do see of Metalstorm looks like another generic by-the-numbers action sci-fi thriller churned out by the Hollywood system.
Drew Pearce wrote the script. He also has writing credits on Iron Man 3 and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation as well as Hobbs & Shaw and Hotel Artemis, which he directed. The latter movie was an attempt to do something different but it becomes cliched in no time. However, I get the feeling that Leitch and Pearce expect their audiences to know more about movies and Hollywood than they did when Hooper was released.
I don’t want to give away the joke but during a scene where Colt and Jody discuss a camera technique, the movie goes to the exact technique. And when Colt is asked if they give out Oscars for stunt work, Gosling responds in a very passive-aggressive way. There’s been some calls by Tom Cruise and filmmaker Steve McQuarrie, both of who have worked on the recent Mission: Impossible movies, as well as others for the Academy Awards to consider recognizing stunt work.
There are some impressive stunts in this movie as there are in a lot of other movies that have gone unrecognized. Usually a stuntperson’s paycheck in relation to the stunt is their award. (For the 1993 Cliffhanger, British stuntman performed the zip line maneuver between two jets both about 15,000 feet from the ground. His paycheck was $1 million, supposedly a record at the time.) Yet it would be nice if the people who coordinate and perform the amazing stunts that get butts in theater seats got a chance to attend the Oscars with their colleagues.
Despite its good reviews and a hilarious promotion by Gosling that had him hosting Saturday Night Live earlier this year in a skit appearing as someone who looks like Beavis, The Fall Guy only made about $180 million worldwide against a $125 million budget. So, I don’t think studio executives are ready to greenlight a sequel. But maybe we don’t need a sequel. I have a feeling this will be one of those movies that will gain popularity on the home video and streaming market.
Peacock, which is owned by Comcast, the parent company of Universal Pictures, which distributed the movie, has plans to stream the movie with the extended cut beginning later this week. So, it will be nice to tune in and see what they left out. Also, I should add that you be sure to sit through the credits as Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, who both starred in the TV series, make the obligatory cameos during a mid-credits scene.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 