The double-edged sword of being a stunt double — the extreme visibility of the death-defying manoeuvres they perform to audiences of millions, the dearth of acknowledgement and the invisibility of their labour — is mined to perfection in The Fall Guy.
A reimagining of the 1981 TV series directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool 2) — himself a seasoned stunt performer — The Fall Guy is an ode to films and the unsung heroes who make it all happen.
Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the stunt double of mega celebrity actor Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson); he's the beating heart of Tom's blockbuster movies, the best in the business. He's also in a casual situationship with cute camerawoman Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), united by their shared love language of car doughnuts, and as happy as anyone can be in a job where you're routinely catapulted off great heights, burned and pummelled.
That is, until a freak accident leaves Colt with a broken back, a broken heart and a broken sense of self.
Working listlessly as a valet for a Mexican restaurant, Colt is jolted out of his depressive stupor when pugnacious producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) calls him out of the blue with an enticing proposition.
Jody is directing her debut feature — a comically naff futuristic sci-fi romance called Metalstorm — with Tom in the lead role, and apparently wants her thwarted lover to be the stunt double.
The plot thickens further when Tom disappears, and Colt is sent on a wild goose chase to hunt him down for the sake of Jody's movie. If he discovers Tom, maybe he'll have another chance with Jody.
If this sounds needlessly convoluted, it is. But The Fall Guy is nonetheless an entertaining romp through the shadowy world of drugs, murder and thugs — set in our very own Sydney, with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge the picturesque backdrop to many a scene.
There are high-octane chase sequences, big explosions, implausible helicopter leaps and a French attack dog with one trick (spoiler: it's not kind to men).
Appearances by Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once) as Tom's downtrodden assistant and Winston Duke (Black Panther) as Metalstorm's stunt coordinator ups the star power of an already star-studded line-up.
The humour in The Fall Guy is both clever and slapstick. Gosling has previously proven his versatility as a comedic actor in Barbie and The Nice Guys, and it's gratifying to see one of the biggest film stars of our time play an underdog.
He delivers offhand, pithy one-liners with his trademark crooked smile and affable charm, expertly balancing machismo with the vulnerability of being the perennial punching bag. Blunt's Jody is his perfect counterpart with her endearing dorkiness, resourcefulness (that saves Colt from many a pickle) and straight-faced comic delivery.
Playing into the structure of a film within a film and taking place predominantly on a set, there's a heightened appreciation for the art of filmmaking in The Fall Guy.
It's a mosaic of film references: the characters speak to each other in metaphors and similes that recall Memento, Notting Hill, The Fugitive and The Last of the Mohicans.
There are meta references to the framework that governs films, like when someone asks Jody if her Metalstorm characters should reference the trouble she's having in nailing the third act (in many ways reminiscent of The Fall Guy's sagging final act).
Complementing the action-packed scenes is the film's upbeat soundtrack, a nostalgia-fest for anyone born before 1995.
It's fitting that the unofficial theme song is KISS's I Was Made For Lovin' You, but less expected is the inspired choice to set one of the chase scenes against Phil Collins' power ballad Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), a truly rousing choice that resuscitated my love for this 80s banger.The Darkness, Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift feature, too.
With much of his currency located in his uncanny likeness to Tom, Colt transcends his forever status as the "fall guy" to exact justice and seek retribution, while Jody's trajectory from camerawoman to director places her at the forefront of dictating her creative vision, instead of enacting someone else's.
The Fall Guy is foremost an action-comedy flick, yes, but it's also a love story between two people becoming the main characters in their own stories.
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The Fall Guy is in cinemas now.
