A love letter to the stunt community (and a little bit to filmmaking as well) while also being a loose adaptation of a TV series from the 80s (which I'm curious to check out now), The Fall Guy is about once-prominent stuntman Colt Seavers, who, 18 months after being injured on a stunt gone wrong, is asked to return to work on his ex-girlfriend's directorial debut, only to be pulled into a dark mystery when the film's leading man disappears.
Right away, I absolutely have to say that the stunts and the stuntmen are the star of the show, from crashing through plate-glass windows, car rolls, and being set on fire to leaping from helicopters and surfing behind a dump truck in traffic, you can tell the filmmakers, especially director (and former stuntman) David Leitch wanted to stuff as much of the craft into the film, and with as much love and care, as possible and all those elements are top notch as a result.
But that doesn't mean that the film doesn't have heart either as Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt give solid performances and have a nice chemistry together with their two characters slowly rebuilding their relationship. Hannah Waddingham and Winston Duke have fun in their supporting roles, also as the film's producer and the film's head stunt coordinator and an old friend of Colt's respectfully.
The film unfortunately gets held back a little bit in the first half, however, with some writing choices (It felt like some of Colt and Jody's, Blunt's character, conversations were repeating themselves), pacing (just as one plot line was starting to rev up, it felt like it would be interrupted for a stretch by the other, one scene felt like it went on for a smidge too long), and editing (again, one storyline sometimes interrupting the other or certain events felt like they were happening too fast, and some events or conversations felt like they should have happened earlier).
But once the second half kicks into gear, the stunts, the pacing, the romantic plot line, and the mystery story (which I actually found pretty solid and satisfactory and felt like an old fashioned TV mystery in a good way) all just seemed to gel together seamlessly, leading to one hell of an absolutely awesome and epic finale (that is the best one I've seen since Mission: Impossible: Fallout. I was originally going to rate the film 3 1/2 stars but that ending bumped it up to a 4 for me).
Ultimately, the film is a solid, old fashioned fun time at the movies that, despite some hiccups in the first half, I really enjoyed. It instantly made me think of. miss, and appreciate even more, epic stunts from movies I grew up with like Indiana Jones crawling along the bottom of the truck in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dr. Richard Kimble jumping down the dam in The Fugitive, all the stuff in James Bond, Speed, Westerns, etc.
While the stunt community is still alive today thanks to series like Mission: Impossible and John Wick, I hope this film is a success so that more projects with those teams in mind can be made, as well as possibly finally getting an awards category at the Oscars because they sure AS HELL deserve it!
I definitely say see it.
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