He’s more than just Ken. Following his Oscar-nominated role as Barbie’s boyfriend, Ryan Gosling keeps the same blond streaks and the same dumb-blond charisma but is asked to be a little more serious in The Fall Guy, giving him a chance to display a range of comedy to drama reminiscent of Cary Grant. Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stuntman, which means he’s got more to worry about than just Beach (though, like the character played by Brad Pitt was described in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he’s “pretty for a stunt guy”). Colt has got a career of back-breaking feats to deal with, doubling for one of the biggest actors in cinema and dating Jody (Emily Blunt), one of the sexiest cinematographers in the business. That is, until it all goes awry.
It’s an injury that scars deeper than just muscle. Colt breaks his back on set, causing him to leave the industry, his girlfriend, and his tremendous ego behind for a life of parking cars at a burrito shop. After 18 months, he gets a call from a friend in show business telling him he’s been hired to work on Jody’s directorial debut, a science-fiction blockbuster set in Sydney, where he learns an alarming secret: Jody doesn’t actually want him on the set, but she needs him there to track down her main actor, who’s gone missing with a trail of breadcrumbs in his wake.
In what is basically an ode to stuntmen, Colt pulls off hilariously operatic moves as he finds the actor, grumbles the lines, and gets the girl. David Leitch spent a decade as a stunt double for Pitt before becoming a director, and his appreciation for the work of stuntmen shines through in every scene, as Colt scours Sydney for his target, going undercover in a nightclub where he trips out on acid, sees unicorns, punches villains, winds up in a car chase, and eventually takes on a ring of hitmen. Why? Because he’s a stuntman. And what do stuntmen do besides take punches for other people?
That reverence for stuntmen makes the messy plot a tad…
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