The Fall Guy: Hilarious and Thrilling Double-Genre Spoof - Just Add Popcorn

By Liz Braun

Rating: A-plus

The Fall Guy is hugely entertaining. A love letter to stunt persons and to filmmaking in general, the film is a romantic comedy for everyone who hates romantic comedies and an action thriller for those less than keen on the genre. 

Written by Drew Pearce and loosely based on the 1980s TV series, The Fall Guy is an interesting hybrid that spoofs cinematic tropes even as it mocks various elements of Hollywood filmmaking — everything from the industry’s monstrous personalities to the tech wizardry that pits the man against the computer.

Ryan Gosling in mid-stunt in The Stunt Man

Such a pity that so much of the film is given away in the trailer, but that's a beef for another day.

The movie is built as a romantic comedy: Stunt double Colt Seaver (Ryan Gosling) and camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) are romantically involved. Then Colt has a bad accident on set, and while recovering his health, he loses his self-confidence and vanishes from the movie-making scene. 

Some 18 months later, Jody has graduated to a director’s role, helming a Western-flavoured, alien-populated sci-fi rom-com action thriller. Colt is lured back into the biz to work on that movie by an odious producer (Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham).

He is once again stunt double to movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). 

Just as Colt is rekindling his love affair with Jody on set, Tom Ryder disappears. It’s up to Colt to find him. The Fall Guy evolves into a mystery punctuated by breathtaking action sequences, with the odd romantic interlude — Taylor Swift songs included — thrown in for good measure. 

It is simultaneously hilarious and thrilling. Just add popcorn.

From Gosling’s narration at the beginning of the movie to a handful of outtakes shown at the end, The Fall Guy is all about breaking the fourth wall — and keeping it broken. Both Gosling and Blunt are in their element here, and all involved appear to be having a good time. Taylor-Johnson is delightfully vapid as the egomaniacal movie star and Waddingham is delicious as the heartless producer. 

And the audience is in on the joke. 

It’s interesting to note that Ryan Gosling’s comedic persona appears to be based on the quintessential Canadian: self-deprecating, earnest, emotionally unguarded, and polite. Yeah, sorry.

The Fall Guy: directed by David Leitch, written by Drew Pearce, starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, in theatres May 3.