Stunt Watch: The Fall Guy (2024)

Watched:  05/04/2024

Format:  Alamo Drafthouse

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Leitch

Certain parties will say "you only went to see this because Hannah Waddingham was in it," and to those people I say "how dare you?" and "it was a major reason for me to go see this movie, but not the only reason."  

It's been an odd weekend for me, movie-watching wise, as I feel like I'm stuck in "did you get the reference?" land - from Unfrosted to this film to the one I forced people to watch, Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens.  And, really, The Fall Guy (2024) is one of the more explicitly textually meta movies I can recall.  

The Fall Guy ostensibly borrows from the 1980's TV show (starring Lee Majors, Heather Thomas and Douglas Barr) about a stunt man who worked as a bounty hunter between gigs.  But aside from using two character (first) names from the show and the color palette on a truck, the film really doesn't have much in common with the program other than the lead being a stunt man.  The Lee Majors show was part of our family's viewing habits, and I have fond memories of it, but in that vague way one remembers liking something when they were eight years old.  I don't remember many details.

Frankly, I don't really know why the studio bothered to use the name, other than people over 45 might remember the show and give it a whirl.  The movie stands alone perfectly fine, and it's not like there's many callbacks to the original show in pop culture.  But I also know that Hollywood is now run by people with business degrees who have lots of self-fulfilling data to lean on, so I get it.  

That said, the movie is a pretty good bit of early summer viewing.  Storywise - nothing ground breaking, but it has some nice character development, some really solid dialog, and stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are charming AF.  Gosling's Colt Seavers is not Lee Majors - he's a sensitive guy who happens to set himself on fire for a living.  Jody in this movie is not a partner-in-crime, she's the love interest - an ex-girlfriend directing her first movie, a big budget sci-fi actioner.  (Oddly, there is no Howie, and I spent the entire run time trying to figure out if anyone in this movie was named Howie.  It's like doing a Three Stooges remake and just having two stooges.  It was weird.  Especially since Winston Duke is in the movie as "Dan" who easily could have been named "Howie".) 

After a terrible accident on set where he's met Jody, Colt sort of disappears from the world.  But 18 months later, he's given a call by the producer of "Metalstorm", Gail (who I am sure is not Gale Anne Hurd) played by Hannah Waddingham.  Gail informs Colt that Jody asked for him, and he's to once again play stunt double to very-big-movie-star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).  But upon arriving (a) Jody did most certainly not ask for him, and (b) Gail would actually like it if Colt could find her wayward star, who has maybe been running around doing lots of drugs in Sydney. 

Things go afoul on the "find Tom" front, but meanwhile, Jody and Colt do seem to be rekindling their relationship - maybe?

The mission statement of the movie seems to be:  make people appreciate stunts by showing what a stunt performer can do.  Oddly, this is trickier than you'd expect.  If you watch action movies, you see lots of great stunts.*  Whether it's watching a Marvel perform a super feat or just seeing someone tossed through a window.  Or a car slam into another car in a comedy.  Someone needs to do that.  But we've also seen people jump off of cliffs, hang from trucks driving through winding European streets...  there's endless opportunity for stunts.  And it's seamless in most movies.  Very rarely does my brain stop to register "that was not Actor X, that was a stunt person doing that".  

Now, pair the idea that you're watching a fictional stuntman perform feats because he's a trained stuntman - and the movie really, really wishes you'd pay attention to that idea while also not thinking too much about whether that's Ryan Gosling or a pro stunt performer.  Its a bit of a mind-bender.

I'll argue that the movie does succeed with a strong 3rd act and sticking around for the credits and some stunt footage.

Meanwhile, a bit like Kiss Me Kate, it's about the show within the show reflecting back on the in-movie-real-life events and failed romance of Blunt and Gosling as Blunt wrestles with a third act/ brings her own broken heart to the table as she ponders whether love can save the planet Earth from alien invaders.  And, of course, in-movie-real-life events reflect the movie being made.

There's some amazingly clever stuff in the film that sometimes threatens to shatter the fourth wall as we watch the two try to sort through things.  But you will not find spoilers here.

I'm not sure what the target demographic is for this movie, because (and here's my comparison to Unfrosted) the movie is rife with film and TV references, from Last of the Mohicans to The Six Million Dollar Man.  Some are diegetic, some are non-diegetic.  Some are explicit and some are implicit.  Those are references for people older than 30.  Maybe quite a bit older.

I saw the movie at 4:30 on opening Saturday, and I'm not sure the audience got 1/2 of the jokes.  Music cues, lines dropped, etc...  and nothing from my audience.  Frequently, Jamie and I would be laughing, and the rest of the theater was just eating popcorn.  Now, a lot of those jokes were locked into some knowledge of the 1980's.  And not everyone remembers the 1980's (as they weren't around yet) or was not tuned into the same stuff during the 1980's or forgot about it in the interim.  

We don't go to the movies very often anymore, so if I'd thought about it, a Saturday late-afternoon movie would not have been the time I would have selected.  I hate to rate an audience for a movie, but this one gets a C- for either not getting the jokes (my suspicion) - because I strongly suspect we were in a theater populated by the kinds of folks who go see "movie that is on at time I am at theater".  And those are the fourth worst audiences.**  

Look, this is a very simple action movie with a plot that is mostly there to hang the B-plot of romance, jokes, the meta ideas.  And the stunts.  

How are the stunts?  

They are, indeed, very, very good.  It's possible they waited too long to get to some good ones, and maybe the movie could have opened on some great stunts instead of the accident, but it's fine.  But there's some great, great stuff in there.  And we could use more movies grounded in some reality over CGI whiz-bang fun, because real life stunts are part of what makes movies great.  I don't want to see someone thrown from a building in real life, but I don't hate watching a pro fall fifty feet into an air bag.  Or a car flip fifty times knowing someone walked away from that.

Will this movie change the world?  It will not.  Except it might act as an argument for an Academy Award for stunts.  I know, it's crazy there isn't one.

Was Waddingham good?  No, in fact, she was not.  She was great.  I am not taking questions on this.

Stephanie Hsu is also in the movie and, flatly, underutilized.  More Hsu in my movies.  Make it so.

Anyway, I think this one may benefit from a big screen, so take that into consideration before relegating it to Peacock (it's a Universal movie).

*this blog is in full support of the idea that the Academy needs to add an award for "Best Stunt", btw

**the first worst audiences are those that are rude, disruptive and basically shouldn't be let out of the house.  The second worst are audiences I've only encountered a few times - and those are audiences at classic film festivals who think anything dated should be met with shrieking laughter.  The third worst are audiences who love a movie so much they must participate and it is not that kind of screening.