The Fall Guy Review – An Ode to Movies Unsung Heroes

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are seeking their happy ending in the Action RomCom The Fall Guy

Who is the real hero in an action movie? The actor who pretends to do something amazing or the stuntman who actually does it? That’s a question this movie poses to its audience for consideration. ‘The Fall Guy’ is Directed by stunt coordinator turned director David Leitch and he pulls back the curtain on the untold pains, struggles and successes of thousands of stuntmen working across movies right now.

The Fall Guy stars Ryan Gosling as Colt Stevers, a top tier stuntman and the stunt double of choice for the worlds biggest action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor Johnson). Life is good for Colt as he’s also struck up an intense romance with camerawoman Jody (Emily Blunt). Following a terrible accident, Colt is seriously injured and vanishes without a trace from the industry. He returns 18 months later to try and rekindle the romance with Jodie and rebuild his career.

The film is loosely based on the 1980’s TV show of the same name which starred Lee Majors. Lee was very popular at the time and also the lead in the iconic six million dollar bionic man tv series.

The TV show was an action/adventure and followed a character of the same name who also worked as a bounty hunter after hours. This movie maintains some of the elements from the show, like the iconic GMC pick up truck but takes a much lighter and fun approach to the source material, including centering the story around a romance.

The Fall Guy is everything you would expect from a Spring/early summer blockbuster. Its big and bold with great action sequences, many funny moments and some incredible stunt work. Having watched so many action movies, audiences may have started to take the difficulty and danger of these stunts for granted, so this movie does its best to highlight and showcase them. Ryan Gosling continues his current hot streak of selecting roles that allow him to do more than brood and actually have some fun and laughs, even at his own expense.

Paired with Emily Blunt, these stars light up the screen as two beautiful people just trying to make their relationship work. Their ‘Will they/wont they’ love affair was probably the most predictable part of the movie as there seemed to be little doubt from the outset how that particular situation would turn out.

Stuntmen have been part of Hollywood’d DNA from the very early days of cinema. The need to do dangerous things on screen while protecting the lead actor has always been a necessity. But for every good execution of the technique, there are 5 bad examples of films where audiences can clearly see it’s a different actor in the scene, which can take audiences out of the moment. More recently we’ve had stars attempting to do some of their own stunts to maintain the emersion and please their fans.

The Fall Guy features in the latest episode of Most Wanted Movies, check out the other films here

While this is admirable, you will always get situations like with Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 6. He insists on doing all his own stunts and broke his ankle leaping between buildings in London, which led to a 6 momth break in the films production. When things like this go wrong, it does have real consequences for the rest of the crew and their families if they aren’t able to work for an extended period. Harsh as it may sound. a stuntman can be replaced, but not a lead star like Tom Cruise.

There is definitely a theme of actors vs stuntmen running through the film. However I dont believe David Leitch is implying lead actors don’t deserve the recognition and accolades they receive. But perhaps there needs to be more acknowledgement of the stuntmen and women who put their bodies through hell to make sure the leads look good and the director gets those incredible breathtaking sequence. Perhaps an Oscar category around stuntwork should be on the table? Every other aspect of film making gets recognised, from music, sound, design, special effects, costume design, so why not for the stunts?

Show the stunt people some love, go watch The Fall Guy-Out in Cinemas now