Charming leads! Explosions! Age-appropriate relationships! Hannah Waddingham!
Following a near-fatal accident on a movie set, Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) has retired from the business and is living alone in Los Angeles. However, when a hot-shot producer (Hannah Waddingham) entices him back to work on a new blockbuster, directed by his old flame Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), things get quickly out of hand when the movie's lead (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) disappears and a dead body turns up in his apartment...
How rare a pleasure it is when a blockbuster actually lives up to the hype. 'The Fall Guy' is a movie that is stacked and built around its two leads and the idea that if you put smart, talented people in front of and behind the camera, something exciting and worth watching is going to appear on screen. That's what 'The Fall Guy' is - the end result of a funny, witty script, great practical stunts and choreography, two leads with on-screen presence and chemistry, and a director who knows how to utilise all of the above to make an entertaining spectacle that appeals to as broad an audience as you can hope for. The best part? The characters are actually relatable.
When we first encounter Ryan Gosling's courageous stuntman, there's some irrestible flirting - the kind that Gosling deployed with ease in the likes of 'Crazy Stupid Love' - with his co-star, Emily Blunt. After his accident that ejects from the business, he's downtrodden and defeated - again, utilising the kind of shabby charm found in his performance in 'The Nice Guys'. Gosling is at his best when he plays these kinds of characters, not the icy operator type in streaming chum like 'The Gray Man' or esoteric thrillers like 'Only God Forgives'. He's naturally funny and witty, all of it heightened by some honestly funny moments in the script from Drew Pearce.
Emily Blunt, an actor who is known to play serious, uncompromising people, is a hoot in this. There's a kind of frantic, high-strung energy in her performance that recalls Meg Ryan or Goldie Hawn in their heyday -beautiful and frazzled, but keeping it together. More than that, she's able to play off Hannah Waddingham with ease, not to mention having genuine chemistry with Ryan Gosling and equalling him with screen presence. Aaron Taylor Johnson, meanwhile, is able to play a douchebag actor far too well, while Winston Duke is more than affable as Gosling's stunt boss and compadre for the hijinks.
Beyond the cast, Drew Pearce's script has enough twists and turns in it to keep you guessing for the runtime. Even though the murder mystery is there to make the stunts and the romance happen, it's still tightly written and smart enough for what's ultimately a secondary consideration. There's also a rich trove of movie humour in this, with plenty of nods and winks to set stories from the past forty years. The real star of the movie, however, is director David Leitch. Having shepherded one of the best action franchises of the past two decades with Chad Stahleski, 'The Fall Guy' might be his crowning achievement. For one, it's set the Guinness World Record for most cannon rolls in a car - eight-and-a-half. Both the car chases and fight scenes peppered throughout the movie have spectacle and texture in equal measure, but more than that, Leitch knows and respects the world of stunts.
At a time when half your social feed is clogged with AI bollocks, endless chatter about the end of film, and soulless CGI replacing in its path, something like 'The Fall Guy' feels like a blessing. It's earnest, almost cheesy in its approach to both action and romantic comedy. It's knowing without being smug, and it has the feel of being made by people who actually care. In mainstream blockbuster cinema, it's so often feels like actors and directors are merely working the numbers and honing their craft for the next thing. Here, you get a sense of how fun and exciting movies can be when they're made by passionate people who know what they're doing. While 'The Fall Guy' is a romantic comedy, the real romance it has is with movies, and the love is there for all to see.