The Fall Guy (2024)

 

This is arriving two plus weeks after I saw the movie. I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to get to it, except that I did spend quite a bit of time with it on the podcast and then the video of that podcast, maybe I just needed a little space. I also have had a couple of my friends on Social Media disparage the film, and my temperature needed to cool down a bit. I understand when you are disappointed with a film and want to mouth off a bit at it. I've done that a couple of times. "Frozen II", "The Lighthouse" and and "US" I'm looking at you. Most of the time when I have disliked a film to the point of despising it, I bite my tongue and cryptically diss it (My posts on "Vice" and "Women Talking" are available on this site if you want to see. ). That said, it is usually the opposite when I am enthusiastic about a film. I am quick to praise and post, it just did not happen here.

"The Fall Guy" is a Summer Entertainment that aims to be fun, action filled and have some humorous moments punctuated by romance. It does all of these things pretty well.  Is it trying to please everyone to a degree that none are satisfied? That seems to be the knock that I have seen from the haters. Allow me to retort...this hit all cylinders with me, and I think it is an excellent argument for making stunt work an active category at the Academy Awards. The film is directed by a former stunt double and coordinator, David Leitch, and when I hear people criticizing the movies stunts, I wonder who they think put together most of the stunts that they unfavorably compare these to.  There are some terrific stunt sequences in the film, including multiple hand to hand combat style fights, which are done on screen in camera, not on a computer. When CGI is used, it is almost always used in environmental contexts rather than inserting a character into the stunt.

Maybe the premise of the film is a little weak. The idea that the stunt man becomes an investigator man seem a little far fetched, but my guess is that this was not a bigger stretch than any episode of the original TV series. The mystery plot is the least essential part for the film to work, what is necessary for the movie to function is the rom-com center, situated in the movie industry itself. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have a natural chemistry together that I found completely winning. The opening section of the film is loaded with sly comic quips between the two of them, and I found their relationship to be very believable. Unlike most rom-coms, the complication here happens at the start of the film, and we spend two hours resolving it and looking in on the complications it created for both of our protagonists. You have two below the line movie people in love with one another, and they get broken up by an accident and some success. The way it plays out is not always logical but it is amusing

Blunt's character has a chance to step up as the director of a science fiction piece that she is shaping into a autobiography of her relationship with our lead. As Jody, a first time director, she seems very competent and has a clear vision of what she wants. When Colt, her former flame ends up on the shoot, she plays out some of her frustrations on him and attempts to humiliate him while still reflecting that there is a spark between them. Gosling's Colt makes no bones about the fact that their disintegration was his fault. The reasons become clearer as they go along, and the slow reconciliation between them keeps the charm of their story center to the film.

Of course the movie has to play with the stunts and that is why the thriller element has to be there, to justify some of the things that Colt ends up having to do. There are stunts within the movie in the movie. For example there is a great car roll that reportedly broke some records and it looks great on screen and there is no CGI substitution that I could see. Another big car stunt takes place near the end of the film, and while there may be some CGI enhancements in perspective and environment, the stunt, when it is shown externally, looks solidly real to me. Maybe they don't really crash a helicopter, but that is an actual stunt guy doing a long fall from the helicopter and it looks spectacular.    When it comes to the fight scenes, you can see that stunt men are falling down stairs, crashing through windows, being flipped and kicked across rooms. Sometimes there is a computer boost, but the hard work is shown in each scene. 

People who jump on this movie may be missing some of the satire that is clearly intended. Movie mavens will appreciate the not so subtle jabs at the marketing departments, the duplicitous producers or the striving wannabe producers. Aaron Taylor Johnson plays the entitled star of the film within a film, and he riffs on Tom Cruise, Matthew McConoughey and Brad Pitt repeatedly. Not in a sharp, dismissive way, but rather by poking at their film personas gently. His speech in the movie, was hysterical not because of the dialogue but because he had an impersonation down completely. Another way to tell that this is gentle parody and not biting criticism is the appearance at the end of the film of a Hollywood heavyweight, spoofing his own film role in a science fiction movie parallel to the one being made in this story.   

Maybe I was seduced by the music cues in the film. There is a Taylor Swift moment that almost makes me want to listen to Taylor Swift. Of course the biggest spoonful of sugar for me is the liberal use of a Kiss song that has been around for 45 years. It is a cheesy bit of pop, but it works perfectly for the tone of the film. If you don't buy into the tone, you will probably not like the movie. I bought in immediately because of that needle drop. 

It also turns out that "The Fall Guy" is really an idiomatic phrase that describes the plot more than the lead character. A bit of legerdemain that I approve of. At the end of the year, when I list my favorite films, I don't necessarily choose movies that are the best quality. I leave that to others. I pick films that I can appreciate for all sorts of reasons, This one might make the list simply because it reaches it's goal, to entertain us.