'The Fall Guy' Is a Cute Rom-Com Buried in a Convoluted Action Movie

Universal Pictures

Romantic comedies thrive on unusual jobs. Whether it's porn scene body doubles in Love Actually, a greeting card writer in (500) Days of Summer or a travel book store salesman in Notting Hill, screenwriters enjoy nothing more than making people working in bizarre industries fall madly in love. It's not shocking, therefore, to find 2024's latest rom-com set in the world of cinematic stunts. And don't let the exploding cars, samurai swords and boat chases fool you, The Fall Guy is first and foremost a rom-com.

Based loosely on a 1980s TV show about a stunt man who moonlights as a bounty hunter, The Fall Guy centers on (and is narrated by) Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), a stunt double for A-list Hollywood star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson doing a Matthew McConaughey impression). When a stunt job involving tumbling from great heights in a hotel lobby goes terribly wrong, however, Colt goes into hiding, becoming a parking valet and leaving his camerawoman girlfriend Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt dressed as Greta Gerwig) bewildered and alone.

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Flash forward 18 months and Colt is summoned out of the blue by Tom's Diet Coke-obsessed producer Gail Meyer (Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddingham) to Australia. Gail claims that Jody needs him to assist with her directorial debut, a dystopian alien/Mad Max-esque movie called Metalstorm. When he arrives, however, Colt learns Jody did not request his presence and rather Gail has somewhat inexplicably dragged him out of hiding to find Tom, who has disappeared.

It's at this point that the plot also wanders off set and never quite returns. While the romance between the leads continues to burn bright, a plot involving accidental murder, face-swapping CGI, drug dealers, hidden microphones, and incriminating cell phone videos is hard to follow and low key irrelevant to what we care about: watching Jody and Colt fall back in love.

These script missteps, however, are something that's not terribly surprising given the talent behind the camera. The Fall Guy is directed by David Leitch, who started his career as Brad Pitt's stunt double before turning his eye to directing action movies like John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Bullet Train (movies lauded for their epic action sequences but not so much their scripts). Leitch is working off a script from Drew Pearce, who previously wrote Iron Man 3, the abysmal Hotel Artemis and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. These two men know how to create an exhilarating action sequence. But a tight plot? Perhaps not.

What is surprising, however, looking at their filmographies is how effortlessly they have crafted a rom-com. The relationship between Colt and Jody is magnetic. Gosling basically plays a recycled and slightly more charming version of Barbie's Ken, and Blunt, trafficking in the dry British wit she does so well, pairs perfectly with his lovesick naivety. Their banter is delightful and the best scenes of the film are the ones focused solely on the two of them. One particular moment involving Colt blasting the 10-minute long version of Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" in his car is especially arresting. (And I couldn't write a full review without complimenting the spectacular needle drops throughout the movie including DJ Khalid's "All I Do Is Win" and Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)."

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It goes without saying, but should still be said, that the stunt work here is also top notch. The Fall Guy is both a tribute to stunt departments (a group of filmmakers who the movie points out cannot be awarded Oscars) and a primer for laypeople as to how stunts are actually pulled off. In addition to the tow truck chase, mobster fights and car crashes which take place within the kidnapping plot, we also see the painstaking work that goes into creating movie stunts while watching Colt and Jody on the set of Metalstorm. This is even further highlighted by the behind-the-scenes footage of The Fall Guy's crew performing their stunts for this movie.

Great set pieces and chemistry can cover a multitude of sins, and The Fall Guy also benefits from some clever gags including a unicorn Colt sees while drugged and a spot-on cameo at the movies end. But all of its strong point only make the flimsy plot stand out more, like expensive jewels hanging on a dingy, cheap chain.

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I think removing the MIA Tom Ryder plotline, and instead focusing on the Metalstorm set and romance, would have focused the movie and trimmed the runtime. An inexplicable fight scene with Ryder's girlfriend and several action scenes in the back third were a smidge tedious, especially when Gosling and Blunt weren't on screen together. Some moments felt like they were created because the filmmakers wanted to execute a cool stunt rather than have them be necessary for the actual plot. This is in contrast to the films of Shawn Levy, who in a high concept action/love story like Free Guy or a movie set flick like Big Fat Liar, better combines story, humor and stunts.

In The Fall Guy, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt fall (see what I did there?) in love, and I, in turn, fell (hehe) for the pairing. I just wish that they'd been handed a Nancy Meyers or Gary Marshall script to channel all that chemistry towards. I'm not sure if I need a Fall Guy 2, but I would love to watch these two fall in love again. Perhaps in a Devil Wears Prada spinoff?

Grade: B-

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