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. 

Bullet Train

 

Director David Leitch knows his way around a contemporary action scene. Having been a producer and an uncredited director on John Wick,  he took on "Deadpool 2" and the "Fast and Furious Spinoff Hobbs and Shaw". In other words, Leitch has become adept at making action films that are short on credulity but long on humor and style, and this is one of them. "Bullet Train", to use the obvious metaphor, is a fast moving vehicle that has few stops, no real scenery and a self contained environment for the players to bounce around in.

Brad Pitt plays an operative who has gone through some kind of existential crisis and is trying to maintain his career as a top clandestine agent, without having to kill or confront anyone in a violent manner. Of course when your job is to steal valuable assets from dangerous people, your life goals may have to take a backseat to your survival skills. In this situation Pitt's character, code named "Ladybug", has to steal a briefcase containing a large amount of money. Of course there is a reason for the money to be there, and there are others on the train who are after the same thing for different reasons, and there are other "fixers" from crime syndicates all trying to eliminate one another. If you took the characters from "Clue" and you moved them from a locked house mystery, to a trapped on a train crime thriller, this would be the result. This is one of those films that plays dismemberment for laughs and violence as a mere inconvenience until the next quip or visual joke comes along. 

"Ladybug" is a Buster Keaton like character who manages to get into and out of situations with a combination of great skills and incredible luck. The physical jokes are over the top and completely unbelievable, they are also incredibly fun to watch and they are accompanied by the relaxed performance of Brad Pitt. It is as if Pitt is not only channeling the laid back character he played in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", but he is now calling on the spirit of Owen Wilson to add a zen like daze to his hipster cool. Pitt seems to know how silly it all is but is having a good time anyway. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry, in addition to using three names, play salt and pepper brothers who are contract killers/operatives for hire, who having thought they completed their mission, now have to deliver the briefcase that is the target of Ladybug. They too have cute code names, Tangerine and Lemon, and they are full of some of the same cool headed hipster violence and humor that dominate these types of movies. 

If you saw "The Lost City" earlier this year, you probably won't be too surprised at a couple of cameo spots that show up in the movie. Also, if you liked Pitt's role in Deadpool 2, we get a turnabout moment that lasts just as long in this film. Maybe this is a little close to spoiler territory, but none of it gives away plot and you know how these things go anyway, so it is really more a moment of pleasure more than surprise when these things happen. I was also a bit pleased when I finally recognized the big bad who shows up at the climax of the film, it was not a role I had any foreknowledge of and it was another moment of cinema fan service more than plot development. Speaking of plot, unlike "Atomic Blonde" which still does not make any sense, this convoluted series of set ups works pretty well at bringing everything together in a reasonably coherent way. There may still be plot holes, but you will understand why everyone is in the picture and what their motives ultimately turn out to be. Pay no attention to the other passengers who appear and then vanish from the train. At best they provide a quick joke, most of the time they would be in the way, but by the end no one cares because the action and the train have accelerated way past reality a third of the way into the movie. By the last act we are watching a live action Road Runner cartoon, and that will be fine for most of us.

"Bullet Train" is the kind of summer movie you should be looking for right about now. It has no long term agenda, there is nothing serious going on that will haunt your memories, and it is easy to watch. Any film that has a Bee Gees tune and mimics the opening of "Saturday Night Fever" must have something going for it. Layer a Jim Steinman song on top of that with a bunch of other upbeat tunes and you will find yourself refreshingly immersed in a pop culture mashup, perfect for these times and this time of year. Jump the turnstile or buy a ticket, "Bullet Train" will entertain you for the dog days of summer.

 

Atomic Blonde

Set in 1989 as the Berlin Wall is about to come down, "Atomic Blonde" is a Cold War Spy thriller with a kick. The twist is that instead of James Bond we have Jane Bond, so all those people who have made that casting suggestion to EON Productions can now all cool their jets. Director David Leitch comes off of a long career as a stunt coordinator and he previously was an uncredited director of "John Wick". He clearly has an eye for action scenes and stages some brutal fights for star Charlize Theron to kick ass through. From a shoot em up perspective, this is a fairly successful film. However, as a spy thriller with delusions of franchisehood,  it leaves a bit to be desired.

Let me give you a little background on the literary character of James Bond as a prelude to discussing Lorraine Broughton, the English spy played by Theron. After Ian Fleming died, the literary 007 lay fallow for a few years. there were attempts to revive the series in the late sixties and seventies, but they never paid off. Sometime during the 80s, the publishers got their crap together and found a new author to pen Bond novels for several years. John Gardner had success in this field on his own, but the Bond Franchise would certainly be a jewel in his crown if it succeeded. Gardner wrote a more than a dozen Bond adventures, but he had too obvious a formula after a while. Inevitably there would be a double cross by one of the characters and occasionally there would be a triple cross. That is what is happening in this film. Double and triple crosses, however without the clarity of a narrative context. In other words, these things just happen out of the blue without much set up and certainly no trail that would allow an audience to participate in the process. Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman made it work in "No Way Out" because there was a ticking clock, and mixed motives that distracted us. "Atomic Blonde" doesn't bother to clarify anything. The end of the movie is a head scratcher and I was able to make sense of the first "Mission Impossible" film.

James McAvoy is the suspected double and at the end of the story, you need to be able to clarify why he has acted in the manner that he did. It's almost impossible to explain because it makes no sense. We know he fits a particular type but we are not clear on his motives or why any of this had to go down the way it did. The film is structured like a police procedural, where the suspect is telling a story that we get to see, but it it interrupted by side tracks and events that the subject would not have been aware of. "The Usual Suspects" made an effort to tie things together with bits of information in the background of the interrogation, this film does no such thing. So watch this for the action and style and forget about trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Theron is ice cold as a blonde killing machine, and she plays the part of a spy being debriefed with the right amount of frustration with her superiors. Toby Jones is the MI-6 section supervisor who cross examines her and they have a couple of nice testy moments. John Goodman is a CIA advisor that she is reluctant to speak in front of, but we don't know why until the end of the film. It also makes no sense but at least it counteracts the bad taste that another twist was going to leave in our mouths. Sophia Botella was in "The Mummy" earlier this summer and in "Star Trek Beyond" last summer. She gives a solid performance as a French operative in over her head, and interestingly as a romantic interest for Theron, even though her part is mostly meaningless. Between Theron and Botella, fishnet clothing may end up in short supply in the European markets.

The look of the film is good and the style choices for the lead are interesting. I appreciated that when a character had been in a fight, that there were signs that a fight had taken place. The degree of punishment for the fight participants, whether winner or loser, is never quite believable because it is so over the top, but I suppose that is what makes it a fantasy spy film rather than a leCarre' story. It is a cool film, but not as cool as you want it to be given the trailers. Once again, all the best stuff is in the ads and there is not enough saved for the film.