‘The Fall Guy’ review: Stunts can’t save comedy that falls flat

The term “stunt show” has always had the air of dismissiveness. When people call a movie a “stunt show,” it usually implies that the film lots of big and loud things happening without much else to make it memorable. Which is weird to say when you think about all the risk and coordination that go into making any movie stunt happen. You’d think it’d always be memorable to see a car flip in the air or a guy fly backwards from a fiery explosion. But perhaps what makes a movie stunt truly memorable is what informs it. Is it the punctuation of an empowering moment, like a guy shooting some barrels to make said fiery explosion? Or maybe it’s the punchline of a funny setup, like someone moving a newspaper from their windshield to see they’re about to crash into a fruit stand? For all the effort put into a stunt, you need that same effort put into what comes before and after it.

If you’ve heard anything about The Fall Guy, it’s probably through the desciption of it being a love letter to stunt performers wrapped in a fun action-comedy shell. That description turns out to be quite literal as it’s about Hollywood stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) having an adventure of his own while trying to make an adventure for audiences. Colt arrives to the set of a new sci-fi epic to roll cars and get blown up in place for mega movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He’s also there to win back his former flame Jody (Emily Blunt), the director of the movie. She’s also still processing her and Colt’s breakup. But when Tom’s manager (Hannah Waddingham) asks Colt to find the now-missing Tom, our stand-in hero ends up in wild chases and fist fights without a crash pad to save him.

Paying tribute to stunts

The Fall Guy clearly means to be an old school summer action-comedy. In terms of action, Universal tries checking all the boxes. Who better than former stunt coordinator turned director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Bullet Train) be the one to pay tribute to the stunts of Hollywood’s past hits? He and his stunt team know how to keep the movie’s action elevating to a good mid-movie chase and a wild finale that looks mostly practical, if not a bit too controlled. The best stunts are when Colt gets into hand-to-hand scraps with bad guys as fight coordinator Jonathan Eusebio (John Wick, Birds of Prey) crafts punches and tackles that hit with a rhythm. So yes, The Fall Guy is a rock-solid stunt show.

But then there’s that other aforementioned element, something sadly missing from this supposed romp. For something that’s billing itself as an action-comedy, it’s rather shocking to see how limp and half-baked the humor is. Writer Drew Pearce is no stranger to injecting a clever jab or two into an action movie (Iron Man 3, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation). The problem is that The Fall Guy desperately needs good laughs to fill the gaps between stunts and Pearce’s snark isn’t as charming as it thinks it is.

Half-baked humor

Much of the humor is either stating the wackiness of movie-making scenarios out loud or the actors trying to wave off that wackiness nonchalantly like Tony Stark or Deadpool. But it’s not just the writing that’s devoid of laughs. Leitch doesn’t seem to know about comedic timing, causing a lot of the physical punchlines to fall flat. Some of the setups go on so long with rambling delivery, you’d think Judd Apatow took over directing and told the actors to just improv for ten minutes. This effect is crippling regarding the energy The Fall Guy tries to muster with its stunts and lighthearted tone. It makes you wish things were a bit more chaotic and everyone wasn’t trying so hard to not be embarrassed by the buffoonery.

Gosling is a capital-s Star and has proven time and time again that he’s got comedic chops. Unfortunately, all The Fall Guy wants from him are his shaggy blonde locks and stone-faced befuddlement. It’s hard not to compare Gosling here to his brilliant performance in last year’s Barbie. But what made his now-overshadowing performance as Ken was Greta Gerwig asking him to believe every bit of heightened nonsense happening around him without a shred of self-awareness. You can’t be cool while saying “mojo dojo casa house” and that’s part of the joke. In The Fall Guy, Gosling just constantly looks and acts like he’s too good for this without ever letting the audience in on the fun. In a caper this purposely silly, you need Moonlighting-era Bruce Willis and not Live Free or Die Hard-era Willis.

The Moonlighting would certainly be needed given that Gosling and Emily Blunt have almost no romantic chemistry and rely on needle drops from Kiss and Taylor Swift to generate some heat. Blunt doesn’t get to do much comedy on her own either, which is shocking for someone who had enough whimsy to play Mary Poppins onscreen. The rest of the talented cast don’t have room to rise above their mediocre placeholder roles. Hannah Waddingham is jazzed-up on Diet Coke to the point of annoyance. Aaron Taylor-Johnson thinks he’s Jake Paul for some reason, while the film demotes Winston Duke to sidekick status. Even Oscar-nominee Stephanie Hsu, who has stellar comic skills (Everything Everywhere All At Once, Joy Ride) doesn’t arrive until an hour into The Fall Guy. And that’s the first of her THREE scenes in the whole movie.

The bottom line

The cast and crew (and marketing team especially) of The Fall Guy have tried so hard to get audiences back into movie theaters for a good time. However sincere their intentions were, it’s clear that more effort was put into promoting The Fall Guy than making The Fall Guy. Not to discredit the stunts here and the people who made them. The Fall Guy is a limp-noodle comedy barely holding itself together by its amusing chases and fights.

It doesn’t spark any kind of excitement or subvert any expectations to be clever. It needed sharper editing, a meaner script, and actors who are as psyched to be in the movie they’re in as the producers are to reap the box office earnings (however few there may be). A stunt show can be fun, but it has to have something to make it more appealing than the next carnival act that rolls into town next week.

The Fall Guy is now playing exclusively in movie theaters. You can watch the trailer here.

---

Images courtesy of Universal Pictures