The Fall Guy Takes it on the Chin 

THE FALL GUY. At the risk of speaking more reboots into existence, the storeroom of old media is not always the refuge of the unimaginative. For it to work, some part of its original DNA that still resonates must be preserved, while others are tweaked to make it new. Listen, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida was a reboot of Chaucer. And few would argue the 1980s TV series about a stuntman/bounty hunter starring Lee Majors and Heather Thomas is a sacred text, the tomb of which should remain untouched. Its big-screen comedy-action resurrection is, as director and former stuntman/stunt coordinator David Leitch (John Wick, 2014; Atomic Blonde, 2017) says in the preview, a tribute to unsung stunt performers, many of whom show their faces in the movie. It also manages to amp up the excitement for our post-Bourne-Wick-Fast-and-Furious era, add self-reflexive humor, chemistry and the goofy vulnerability of its star Ryan Gosling.

The fantastically named stuntman Colt Seavers (Gosling) is happily dating camerawoman Jody (Emily Blunt) and doubling for massive movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who is definitely not the oft name-checked Tom Cruise. But an accident on set sends him spiraling, ditching his career and ghosting his girlfriend. A year and change later, Ryder's producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham with a Diet Coke welded to her hand) cajoles him back into service for an action-sci-fi epic Ryder is shooting in Australia with first-time director Jody. He agrees in hopes of winning Jody back, despite his fear of getting back in the saddle. And once she's had him set on fire and thrown into rocks for a few cathartic retakes (who among us?), things are looking up. That is, until Gail enlists him to hunt down the movie's AWOL star, a mission that sends him down a rabbit hole filled with real-life danger.

The pace of Fall Guy is fast and pulled along by momentum, rolling along like a car flipping on a beach. The physical stunts are as spectacular as one would hope and a welcome respite from the detached perfection of CGI. Car jumps, chase scenes and prop-heavy set pieces are alternately jaw dropping and funny. Simple stunts, like smashing through a window or dodging a sword while trying not to spill a cup of coffee are a pleasure, too. A fight in a spinning Dumpster as it's dragged behind a speeding truck is inspired, as is the sparky, neon, drug-enhanced throwdown in a club.

The versatile Blunt is funny and charming, alternately focused and distracted, with an awkwardness that belies the fighting chops that made her a compelling action lead in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). As usual, we don't get enough Winston Duke, here quipping and scrapping as Colt's stunt coordinator and buddy. Waddingham delivers an excellent send-up of a myopic Hollywood bigwig, as does Taylor-Johnson, and there's plenty of self-mockery as Gosling the glamorous leading actor plays a stuntman rolling his eyes at the entitled star he's spent years making look good.

Amid calls for the Academy of Motion Pictures to recognize stunt performers and coordinators, the timing of The Fall Guy is good. And maybe it's the pink aura still hanging around Gosling in the wake of Barbie (2023), but it also feels like a good time for a shift in the male action hero template. There's only so much stoicism and indestructibility an audience can take. Instead of unrelenting alpha male swagger, Gosling and writer Drew Pearce give Colt a bewildered confidence and shrugging humility. After all, the stuntman isn't the star. He looks at the thing he's about to jump off, be run over by or thrown into matter-of-factly, like someone who knows he'll probably survive it but it's going to hurt.

When Gosling rolls onto the concrete, we feel it with him; his thumbs up, given from under a crumpled car or in a heap on the pavement, is a reflex disguised as optimism. Gosling's performance in retro action-comedy-noir Nice Guys (2016) showcased a similar, albeit sketchier, hero vibe. It would be reminiscent of young Harrison Ford's wincing or Humphrey Bogart taking a punch in the mouth, though you'd never have caught Indiana Jones or Philip Marlowe sighing in his car over a relationship montage while Taylor Swift croons "All Too Well." But even making a cheesy declaration of love, delivering a punchline or dangling in peril, Gosling maintains a vulnerability that creates a different kind of tension in contrast — maybe harmony — with the action.

Fall Guy is genuinely fun and absolute catnip for action movie fans. While it opens with a supercut of epic stunts being shot, wires and all, it ends with footage of the stunts shot for the movie you just watched. Don't cheat yourself out of it. PG13. 114M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill.

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