While Ryan Gosling has been riding a wave of “Kenergy” since Barbie (2023) hit theaters, we must not forget his leading man status and his ability to literally be “us” in an ocean of memes shared across the internets and intranets that dominate the movie social media landscape. Case in point:
While I too wish to be one of the prime cultural avatars of our time, Gosling is one of the chosen few alongside Christian Bale, 50 Cent, and a few other chosen ones.
Regardless, we’re not here to write internet essays; we’re here to write movie reviews, and Fall Guy was one helluva movie!
The story follows stuntman Colt Seavers (Gosling), who suffers a major accident while subbing in for the biggest star in action, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). After taking an extended self-imposed exodus from the business, he gets drawn back into the fray by big-time producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) to help find Ryder, who has gone missing. Adding to the stakes is the fact that his ex-girlfriend, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), is directing the movie, and if it gets shut down because of Ryder’s disappearance, her dreams of finishing her first blockbuster will be dashed!
This is all set up very fast, and thankfully, the movie doesn’t let up from there. The pacing is delightfully fast, with Seavers going from one misadventure to another with loads of comedic bits thrown in. Gosling does a lot of the heavy lifting with great assists from Blunt as Moreno and Winston Duke as his stunt coordinator, Dan Tucker. Waddingham also gives a delightfully flamboyant performance as Gail Meyer, playing one of the more memorable portrayals of a Hollywood producer I can think of.
Along with general fun performances all around, the movie itself is a love letter to stuntmen of all stripes, with loads of action supporting my claim. You want burnouts? Check. Cars flipping? Check. Explosions? Check. Boats jumping? Check. The fights are fun, and it delivers all this with heaping doses of style that were much appreciated.
While it’s not a serious movie, and some parts of the movie get ridiculous, that’s fine, as it was also ridiculously fun for me and my family, and it was fun to just sit down and laugh at the silliness of the action movie genre we all know and love.
If you have made it this far, you know this movie is ACTION A GO GO approved. So go see it!