THE FALL GUY MOVIE REVIEW: RYAN GOSLING, EMILY BLUNT ARE THUNDERING HEART OF THE FILM

When two beautiful, charismatic actors are lighting up the screen together, what can go wrong? Still, a lot.

Ryan Gosling plays Colt, a stunt double for a big Hollywood star, who has called it quits after a serious back injury. Emily Blunt is Jody, a camera operator who has got her first big break as a director, that too of a mega, cosmic-level action flick, described in all seriousness as “High Noon at the edge of the universe”. Basically, it is not a film that normally comes the way of women directors.

The two had a thing, before his accident; we get enough glimpses of Gosling's inescapable charm and Blunt's easy repartee to know it could have been more.

However, the film is not that simple. For, David Leitch – once a stunt performer himself and behind thrilling action movies such as Bullet Train, John Wick – and his writers with similar films under their belt, don't want to let the stunt angle go waste. So the relationship between Colt and Jody is just a wafer-thin plot to hang all the fighting, car and boat chases, blasts and destroyed vehicles, and hand-to-hand combats.

Only some of that fighting has to even do with the film Jody is making, which being the Dune-ish inter-stellar spectacle it is, has enough to go around. For, there is another angle within this angle. The star for whom Colt is stunt doubling, Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson), has gone missing. The producer, a brilliant Waddingham, convinces Colt that he is the best man to get Tom out of whatever mess he has got himself into, given his set of skills.

So we are here, there and everywhere over the film's 2-hour run time, impressed at times but waiting to be swept off our feet. For all its thundering mechanics, the thundering heart of The Fall Guy remain Gosling and Blunt, and the easy-going snatches of time they have together.

There is a lot of chatter about “happy endings” and whether these are even possible. Jody and Colt, one feels, can write their own endings, happy one way or the other, without too much effort. They also make nice working partners.

In one scene, Colt talks about “too much exposition” getting in the way. He may as well have been talking about The Fall Guy.

The Fall Guy movie director: David Leitch

The Fall Guy movie cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke

The Fall Guy movie rating: 2.5 stars

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2024-05-02T11:46:53Z dg43tfdfdgfd