The Fall Guy sticks the landing thanks to Gosling and Blunt

From The Cameraman to Babylon, Hollywood loves to look inward.

The best movies about movies, like Ed Wood, are a love letter to the medium and capture the excitement of what movies mean to people.

We often see films about struggling creatives or diva actors – The Fall Guy is no exception – but where The Fall Guy stands out is focusing on the stunt people who bring our favourite action movies to life.

Ryan Gosling stars in this big and flashy film version of the 80s TV show starring Lee Majors, and Gosling’s inherent likability is milked for all its worth.

The Fall Guy opens with Gosling in voiceover explaining that stunt performers are a major part of our favourite films, but we just don’t notice them.

When we reviewed The Equalizer 3 last summer we noted that a brilliant movie star can make an audience look over a shoddy script and The Fall Guy is a great example of the power of the movie star.

Ryan Gosling has a superstar quality where even when he’s not talking, you can’t keep your eyes off him, and when he speaks you are either hanging on his every word or laughing your head off.

Gosling managed to steal Barbie last year and The Nice Guys has developed a solid reputation among film buffs since it sadly flopped in 2016, so seeing Gosling carrying a big studio film by himself is a refreshing change of pace.

Gosling is teamed up with Emily Blunt as the stressed-out director of an in-universe film that is going wildly over budget and out of control, with her problems compounded by the films leading man going missing.

The pairing of the two is irresistible, and for the pendants claiming we don’t have movie stars anymore we will point them in the direction of this movie.

Emily Blunt has experience carrying a major action film opposite a major star (we’re still waiting on that Edge Of Tomorrow sequel, Hollywood) and her ability to seemingly flip a switch from silly to serious never ceases to amaze.

Blunt was the quiet engine of Oppenheimer last year and managed to give a female character in a Christopher Nolan movie depth and agency.

In her leading role in The Fall Guy, she acts as the Ying to Gosling’s Yang.

The chemistry between the two is electric and is a major reason of why The Fall Guy works as well as it does.

If studios want to make Gosling and Blunt the new Hanks and Ryan then we are fully onboard.

Director David Leitch, who was Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s stuntman in a past life, fully understands we are here to see people fall through coffee tables or have them thrown against the wall like flies.

Thanks to Leitch’s direction there is a physical element to The Fall Guy that makes it stand out.

Leitch’s films have a habit of being annoying (directing Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train will do that to a director) but Leitch has managed to rein himself in on this movie and let the stars do the heavy lifting.

The Fall Guy is a very loose adaptation of the 80s show – it uses the basic conceit of the main character being a stuntman who uses his knowledge of the industry to solve a mystery – but there is a pleasingly cheesy 80s feeling to the film version that feels fitting.

Argylle, which leading medical professionals recently designated a public health risk, thinks it was making a movie like The Fall Guy.

Argylle presented itself as a tribute to the likes of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon but The Fall Guy does a much better job of capturing the spirit of those movies.

There is a winking, playful side to The Fall Guy that walks right up to the line of being annoying but pulls it off.

The Fall Guy runs aground when it tries to pile all of the script elements together in a third act that is fun to watch but is convoluted to the point of annoyance. 

The Fall Guy is a rollercoaster, but it hopes the audience doesn’t notice that some of the paint has peeled off or the hydraulics aren’t working properly.

It is however very easy to get caught up in the excitement and if you’re there to have a good time at the movies The Fall Guy is just what the doctor ordered.

We are eagerly anticipating Furiosa later this month and waiting for George Miller to once again revolutionise action cinema as we know it, but The Fall Guy is still worth your time if you’re after an action fix.

For people who want to see Ryan Gosling do or say something silly while maintaining a weird sense of dignity through the whole thing, this is a fantastic showcase of his talents.

The summer blockbuster season is going to be heavily disrupted by last year’s dual actor and writers strike and the strikes caused Hollywood to reflect on how it treats the people behind the scenes.

The Fall Guy is a fitting tribute to the army of people who make the movies happen.