Everything was going so well. He had the girl of his dreams and the job of a lifetime. Both were filled with the promise of bigger and better things, and both the boy and the girl saw each other in that still-developing picture. Hollywood is a dream factory, and not just the ones up there on screen. 

Then, an accident followed by a retreat. The dream was over.

Author F. Scott Fitzgerald once said there are no second acts in American lives. What would Fitzgerald make of today’s Hollywood? Not only are there second acts—and thirds and fourths and fifths—but firsts are now merely prologue. 

To open The Fall Guy—shot in what looks like one unbroken take—stunt double Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) walks the audience through the inner workings of a Hollywood movie set. There’s an internationally bankable action star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his micro-managing mega-producer with a Diet Coke perpetually in hand, Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), current camera operator and aspiring auteur, Jody Meyer (Emily Blunt), and himself, Colt Seavers, Ryder’s stunt double and one of the coolest men to strut across this set. 

It’s all pretty impressive—the way writer Drew Pearce lays out the character dynamics gives Colt and Jody a meet-cute even though they’re well into their relationship and provides the audience with a behind-the-scenes tour of how a blockbuster is made. But it’s also a cheat. Colt narrates as he goes, shorthanding all the info that’s too difficult to depict visually and concisely. And once the audience gets enough info, the narration ceases. Pearce will return to the conceit a couple more times in the script, having characters talk out and explain the plot rather than get it up on its feet and run it around the block.

Which is why The Fall Guy comes across as charming and clever but also wears thin. Directed by David Leitch, a former stuntman himself, The Fall Guy—adapted from the Glen A. Larson TV series from the 1980s with Lee Majors as Colt and Heather Thomas as Jody—has been called by marketers as a “love letter to the stunt community.” The unsung heroes who make the death-defying movie moments the stuff dreams are made of. 

The Fall Guy is certainly a love letter—a long, drawn-out one where the lovers can’t quite get to the point, so keep blathering on. And, if you’re the one in love, then it doesn’t matter. They could go on and on and on, and you wouldn’t care one bit. Frankly, those are some of the best moments in a romantic relationship.

But for those not twitterpatted, there’s a want for a come to the point of it all. In one such scene—set on a speedboat chased by men with semi-automatic guns because this is an action movie—Colt tries to explain to Jody why their relationship suddenly stopped physically but never mentally. And why they should give it another go. It’s a sweet moment, but Colt’s grand revelation requires 1,000 words when three would probably suffice. That’s kind of the movie in a nutshell.

The Fall Guy (2024)
Directed by David Leitch
Screenplay by Drew Pearce
Based on the TV series created by Glen A. Larson
Produced by Guymon Casady, Ryan Gosling, David Leitch, Kelly McCormick
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Teresa Palmer, Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke
Universal Pictures, Rated R, Running time 126 minutes, Opens May 3, 2024

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