I first heard of David Leitch as one of “the JOHN WICK GUYS” – the two MATRIX RELOADED stuntmen who directed JOHN WICK and changed action cinema. Chad Stahelski was the one credited, and has continued helming that visionary series, while Leitch launched a more normal directing career – half projects from their production company 87North (formerly 87Eleven), half for-hire type gigs. I love his neon-drenched spy movie ATOMIC BLONDE, and his other films (DEADPOOL 2, HOBBS & SHAW, BULLET TRAIN) all have good action, some style, and some other things I like about them, but their increasingly scattershot humor has kept me from fully embracing them. So I’m glad that with THE FALL GUY, a loose redo of the ‘80s TV show premise, he’s found his perfect subject.
The story is light and breezy, and everyone gets to be funny, but the humor leans mostly on one easygoing star persona – Ryan Gosling (director of LOST RIVER) as stuntman Colt Seavers – rather than having every character constantly compete for attention with wacky riffs. And best of all, obviously, it’s a love letter to the stunt profession, so there’s a very specific expertise and passion that makes Leitch more qualified than anyone else to tell this story. He even has a songwriting credit on an end credits “there should be an Oscar for stunts” song!
Colt is the regular double for action superstar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, SAVAGES). Yes, Tom Ryder from THE PUNCHER. (I don’t remember the other movie posters in his trailer, but that one stuck with me.) So he’s walking on sunshine because he’s at the top of his profession, and he’s also been having an on-set fling and flirtation with super cool camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt, SICARIO). But when he breaks his back in a fall gone wrong he’s so humiliated and depressed he goes incommunicado for a year and she decides to move on.
Though mostly recovered, he doesn’t think he can go back to stunts, settling for life as a valet at a Mexican restaurant. Then Ryder’s long time producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham, “Factory Worker,” LES MISERABLES) calls begging him to come work on a big sci-fi movie in Sydney. Says the director asked for him specifically. The answer is no until she adds that the director is Jody, getting her big break.
When Colt arrives on set he finds out his old friend Dan Tucker (Winston Duke, US) is stunt coordinator, and he tries to talk his way out of the job. Next thing you know he’s doing the big car stunt they plan to use for the presentation at Comic-Con. Only afterwards does he finally get to see Jody and find out that she did not in fact ask for or want him there. She agrees to let him keep filming, treating him a little like Sam Raimi treats Bruce Campbell, and embarrassing him by describing their relationship troubles over a megaphone, pretending she’s describing his character Space Cowboy.
The truth is that Gail (who amuses me by always fiddling with a cold beverage, even during important talks) needs him there because Tom Ryder has gone missing, maybe in a drug binge, after getting mixed up with some dangerous people. Colt must find him and convince him to come back to set to save Jody’s movie. So we’ve got a romantic comedy mixed with a making-movies movie mixed with a mystery where he uses the skills of his profession in a series of spectacular chases and fights designed to showcase stuntwork. Chris O’Hara (Zachary Ty Bryan’s stunt double in THE RAGE: CARRIE 2) receives the newly coined stunt designer credit, and the fight coordinators are Jonathan Eusebio (JOHN WICK 1, 2 and 3) and Sunny Sun (EXTRACTION II). They’ve also got the excellent JOHN WICK d.p. Jonathan Sela and editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir.
Of course there’s all kinds of cool insider stunt industry stuff. You’ll see numerous logos for 87North, the Stuntwomen’s Association and yes, Hal Needham’s (still existent) company Stunts Unlimited, which in my opinion makes this a sequel to HOOPER. There are natural gimmicks like a fight breaking out in Tom Ryder’s fancy apartment using props from his memorabilia collection as weapons (see also: SHOWDOWN AT THE GRAND). My favorite touch there is that Colt moves some couches around knowing he’s later going to fall off a balcony onto them.
I took it as a funny jab at other movies, and maybe specific script-notes-givers, when they’re struggling with “third act problems” and someone suggests having a character state in the movie that they’re having third act problems. (Jody declines to do that.) If it was self-referential, seems to me they worked things out. I think it’s got the right amount of meta; they’re having fun taking place in the world of movies, but not laying it on too thick. Stunt coordinator Dan quoting inspirational speeches from movies or just yelling “STUNTS!” to hype himself up for a fight made me smile. I didn’t know while watching that when Colt is congratulated for making a Guinness Book record for most cannon rolls at eight and a half that’s because the actual stunt driver Logan Holladay did make that record by filming that scene! You don’t get to see that kind of meta every day.
The movie they’re filming is called METALSTORM, and it honestly didn’t occur to me that it might be a remake of METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN. Doesn’t seem based on it to me, but they do keep saying its tagline, “it’s HIGH NOON at the edge of the universe!” I like that it’s a goofy ass REBEL MOON looking movie that we can laugh at but they don’t go the cynical route and have Jody be above it, compromising for career reasons. Colt says that METALSTORM is her dream, and tries to be supportive of it. Everyone seems sincere. It doesn’t feel like the usual “yes Hollywood is stupid, but we know that, so we’re in on the joke.” More like “you may think it’s stupid, but this is what we love to do.”
When you finally find out what exactly is going on, there’s a really clever conceit at the center. BIG-ASS SPOILERS THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY. It turns out the reason Tom Ryder has been missing is that he’s in hiding after accidentally killing the stunt double who replaced Colt. He was wasted at a party bragging about doing his own stunts and his double laughed about it, he tried to prove himself by kicking the double, and fatally knocked his head into something. The plan is to digitally stitch Colt’s face over Tom’s on the cell cam footage of the accident. While watching the movie I don’t think I fully appreciated what a perfect villainous scheme this is for a stuntman movie: an action star trying to frame a stuntman by reversing the process of stunt doubling.
(One thing I wondered is if they went through the trouble to really fake the footage or if they just had Gosling shoot it. If it’s the former those deep fakes have gotten scary good.)
This must’ve been pretty loose and improvisatory judging by how much stuff is in the trailers that didn’t make the movie, but to me it feels much more tight and disciplined than the last couple Leitch movies. It’s a good story courtesy of screenwriter Drew Pearce (IRON MAN THREE, HOTEL ARTEMIS) that’s only convoluted in a mystery novel sort of way, and at its heart is simple enough that it makes a nice structure to focus on the characters and steer them smoothly into the laughs and the stunts. It’s the perfect leading man vehicle for Gosling, a best-of-both-worlds character where he’s cool and highly capable but also a goof that we get to laugh at. I just think he’s so funny, and they set him up with great opportunities like when it briefly turns into a buddy movie between him and a trained dog named Jean-Claude* who he just talks to as if it’s a person who understands him. Maybe the biggest laugh in the movie for me is when he yells to Jean-Claude to “Engage your core!” before jumping the car they’re in.
*Note: Leitch doubled Jean-Claude Van Damme in REPLICANT and THE ORDER
Pearce has fun setting up those little things that pay off satisfyingly whether they surprise you or you’re waiting for them. Maybe the best is Colt’s amazing Miami Vice Stunt Team jacket, which he struts around in like he thinks he’s, uh… Ryan Gosling with the scorpion jacket in DRIVE. He explains that it’s from his “first show” and I was thinking it must mean he worked on the movie MIAMI VICE even though it’s the logo for the TV show, but the answer is that it was the stunt show at Universal Studios. I didn’t guess the specific way this detail would come back into play, and then when it does it’s so obvious and so perfect that Gosling even turns and smiles in the direction of the camera, as if the character on screen noticed how much I appreciated it and wanted to show that he felt it too. Just an effortlessly thrilling cinematic moment.
Whether or not he’s consciously set out to do this, it’s another entry in Gosling’s catalog of characterizations that explore men’s attempts to suppress their emotions. In DRIVE, ONLY GOD FORGIVES and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES he mastered the stoic man whose quiet makes him seem cool but he’s actually horribly broken and only knows how to express himself through explosive violence. In BARBIE he learns a form of masculinity from images of Stallone and Travolta, has fun trying it on like a costume but realizes it’s not him, a journey has trouble putting into spoken words but does turn into his show-stopping Oscar-snubbed musical number. Now in THE FALL GUY we have the great scene where Jody catches Colt having a private moment in his car, crying and listening to Taylor Swift. The details and the doomed attempt to hide his embarrassment are comedic, but it’s very on point for the character and his unhealthy instinct to never let anyone see that he’s hurt.
More than that, Gosling paints what I found to be a deeply relatable portrait of fucking up a relationship by not knowing how to articulate his feelings and instead retreating into silence. I’m not as handsome, charismatic or talented as Colt Seavers but in this one way we’re twins in my opinion. So I don’t know, maybe others won’t have this experience, but for me the way he pours his heart out to Jody about this very true experience in the middle of the action climax made the romance a home run. It works as the FIRST BLOOD blubbering monologue, or the DIE HARD “tell her that John said that he was sorry” moment, even while sticking to the light and funny register of this particular movie. It got me a little misty, actually. I needed a therapist to teach me that it’s less hurtful to say it wrong than to say nothing, but now I have a movie (with stunts) to remind me.
I think my favorite Leitch solo movie might still be ATOMIC BLONDE, because I love its over-enthusiastic sense of style, its showstopping action setpieces, details like having Academy Award winner Charlize Theron fight BLOODSPORT sequel star Daniel Bernhardt in front of a screen showing Tarkovsky’s STALKER, and the firehose gag that’s in the “stunts are great” montage at the beginning of this movie. But for the reasons above I might be able to be convinced THE FALL GUY is actually his best. At any rate it’s a just a big old smile of a movie, especially for those of us fascinated by the stunt life. I’m glad to have another David Leitch movie I can love unreservedly.
May 10th, 2024 at 2:19 pm
Not reading this whole thing til I’ve gotten to see it… but of note…
BJ McDonnell (he of directing Hatchet 3 and Studio 666) headed the steadicam dept on this movie. Directs low budget, steadicams the big shit.