LGM Film Club, Part 436: The Fall Guy
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The Fall Guy did not do so well at the box office and that’s too bad, because it is really is pretty damn entertaining. It’s amazing what happens when Hollywood lets movie stars be movie stars and just have this amazing charisma on screen. This very loose adaptation of the TV show with Lee Majors stars Ryan Gosling as the stunt man and Emily Blunt as his love interest/camerwoman turned director of what must be the stupidest fucking movie imaginable. Of course Hollywood loves movies about movies and if it can make fun of the big Mad Max-type blockbusters, why not. Two things make this film work. The first is all the stunts. Not surprisingly, the director, David Leitch, is a former stuntman himself and so this is an ode to his field. As such, the stunts are great. Gosling is a fantastic physical actor who can also do it all with a sense of humor and still looking good. This movie goes all in on the stunts. The second reason it works is the ridiculously good chemistry between Gosling and Blunt. In fact, I wish there was more Blunt in the film. She’s definitely a supporting actress here, which is too bad. They might not quite be at the level of Clooney and Lopez in a car trunk, but they are damn close. That really works very well. And like I stated with Hit Man, you just don’t get enough opportunities for this kind of chemistry on screen anymore, not with the bullshit monster movies and such today.
Where The Fall Guy falters some is the plot is utterly ridiculous. The action revolves around a rogue movie star (think a combination of the worst characteristics of Depp, Harrelson, and McConaughey in one asshole). It takes up a lot of the film. In a sense it is necessary to justify all the stunts, but really, that part of the film needed a lot more work.
In the end, I don’t think The Fall Guy is a great film. It’s a fun film and it’s a film worth watching. Some critics have it on their top 10 and I probably wouldn’t if I had seen as many films as they have. I think the weaknesses of the plot are too much for that. But I’d like to hope that it is an important film, showing that at the very least, putting real actors together doing real things might get some critical attention. Still, it would have helped a lot if more people had gone to see this.