Bookshelf Battle

He falls. He’s a guy. He’s the fall guy.

BQB here with a review of the first blockbuster movie of the summer season.

Or at least, it should be. I loved it and yet to my surprise, attendance at my local theater was sparse, though I don’t know if that’s a reflection of public interest in the film or public interest in cinema in general, given that most movies will be released to your TV within 2 weeks to a month tops now.

Anyway, in a sea of neverending reboots, Hollywood found a reboot loophole here. The reboot of a property so obscure in the public eye that it’s almost, ALMOST, as if they came up with something completely original. Eighties kids like myself will remember the original version of the Fall Guy with Lee Majors playing a Hollywood stunt man who, by day, recorded himself getting abused on film just to make pansy actors look good and by night, used his brawlin, car chasin, ability to take all manner of physical abuse and keep on tickin’ skills to fight crime. His pick-up truck was so cool it might as well have been given a mention in the ending credits. Heather Thomas played his love interest and fellow stunt woman.

But alas, while many 80s shows have been cemented into pop culture history due to memorable gimmicks (who can forget Magnum PI’s mustache or Mr. T’s tomahawk and gold chains), The Fall Guy, though an awesome show at the time (I remember enjoying it as a kid), faded into a place where it was remembered but only true 80s enthusiasts like the proprietor of this blog.

Frankly, over the years, I worked on my little writing projects that went nowhere and wondered if Hollywood ever one day liked my writing so much that they turned one of my self-published novels into a movie, what reboot would I pitch if I ever wanted to get into the reboot game? I always thought The Fall Guy was a ripe property to be mined because it had a good plot, could invite awesome action given today’s modern special effects, and didn’t have such a devoted fan base that they’d kick and scream over a reboot. (But forgive me for deluding myself into thinking Hollywood wants anything to do with me given my blog is only read by 3.5 readers.)

I digress. Onto the review.

Ryan Gosling stars as Colt Seavers, the titular Fall Guy, living the dream in Hollywood as a successful stunt man with the bonus of a budding relationship with camerawoman Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt.) Alas, an on-set accident leaves him with a broken back, a 2-year recovery, and an ego so bruised that he wants out of the stunt game for kid and even breaks it off with Jody for he’s embarrassed that he has sunk from the heights of movie stunt man to the lowly depths of parking cars for a restaurant valet service.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Colt catches a big break to re-enter the stunt game when raging diet coke addict Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) talks Colt into performing stunts for pretentious a-hole actor Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who Colt is a dead ringer look alike for. Matters are complicated when it turns out that Jody has been promoted to director and is in charge of the film, that Tom, due to a history of bad behavior, has gone missing, and its up to Colt to solve the mystery of Tom’s disappearance with the added pressure that the love of his life’s big shot at movie director stardom will be ruined if he doesn’t deliver. He’ll have to use his stunt man skills to fight all manner of villains, go on crazy car chases and take all sorts of physical abuse. Winston Duke of Black Panther fame lends a hand and some punches as a stunt coordinator who gets Colt’s back.

Criticism? There are a few points in the movie where the love story drags a bit. Don’t get me wrong. The chemistry between Gosling and Blunt is there and it is sweet but it lingers a lot when we are waiting for the next crash and bash.

Kudos? You might criticize it in that it is a movie about an actor who plays a stuntman who has suffers all manner of indignities as he is smashed, bashed, and crunched just so pretty actors can stay pretty and spoiled audiences can watch a cool scene for 5 seconds then forget about it. The irony is that while the movie is an ode to unsung stuntmen who do all the dangerous work while pretty boy actors take all the glory (in the end, even though the stuntmen get tossed around the audience thinks the unscathed actor took all the abuse), unsung stuntmen did Gosling’s stunts as he pretended to be an unsung stuntman.

How meta. But to the movie’s credit, during the ending credits, a behind the scenes montage of some of the film’s most dangerous stunts plays, cluing us in to how those stunts were pulled off and we get to see the stunt men in action, and that Gosling himself even performed a few stunts of his own and isn’t just the pretty boy face we assumed. Or that I assumed. I don’t know what you assumed.

If you do see it, do be sure to stay through the entire credits because there’s a pretty fun cameo with Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, the original Fall Guy and Fall Gal at the end. BTW, in today’s hyper woke age where you see movies with five foot tall, 100 pound women taking out 300 pound goons with a pinky finger, I find it refreshing that Hollywood had a chance with the original source material having a stunt woman girlfriend and they rewrote it to behind the scenes girlfriend. And she wasn’t a damsel in distress. She just assisted her BF with her brains and movie magic know-how. It was more believable than trying to convince us that Emily Blunt can pile drive a bodybuilder.

STATUS – Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip to your theater.