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The Fall Guy is the long-in-development (not necessarily long-awaited) big-screen version of the ’80s TV series, starring Lee Majors, which ran from 1981 to 1986 and now brings us Ryan Gosling in the role of Colt Seavers, which is probably the best casting option at this time, following the humour he brought us in Barbie, making him the best thing about that mixed bag of a film.
His opposite number is Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, which ended up in an inadvertent double-bill with Gosling’s film last year, due to ‘Barbenheimer’) as camerawoman Jody Moreno, working on the same film together whilst having a relationship, although she’s always looking to take that big step to become a director.
Following an accident on set, Colt’s taken to hospital and is out of action for 18 months, due to a resulting back injury.
Now he’s back on a new set, and for Jody’s directorial debut, Metal Storm – a sci-fi cowboy movie, the name of which uses Metallica’s font, so they must’ve got permission for that, otherwise someone’s getting sued.
However, amongst Colt performing a number of stunts, where’s the storyline in this movie? It’s like they completely forgot!
Well, maybe a slight plot is included, as the actor he’s standing in for, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Bullet Train, also from this same director, David Leitch, along with John Wick) has gone AWOL, and his producer, Gail (Hannah Waddingham, even though I thought Dolly Wells was playing the character, originally. No, sadly, it’s Hannah), wants him to go looking for the man and check he’s not fallen back into a drug habit… although not too much of one, given that this is a 12-certificate.
Probably the best thing about The Fall Guy is a lot of use of a handful of songs, such as Kiss’ I Was Made For Loving You, plus some use of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, although it could do with more. There’s also a reference to Majors’ other big TV hit, The Six Million Dollar Man, when the ‘jump’ sound effect is used at one point.
There’s also a very good car chase around halfway through, and while I didn’t really grasp the necessity of Aaron’s character requiring a personal assistant – given that he isn’t onscreen that much – the role of Alma is played by Stephanie Hsu (Joy Ride), who is just under 5′ of awesomeness, so, more of her, please!
Now, some problems: There’s not a lot of humour in this, so you should keep what you have. The trailer had a couple of great lines, one being: “They were trying to kill me! And NOT in a GOOD WAY!”
In the film, they used an alternate take with the lines reversed, and with a lot less energy. BIG mistake.
Meanwhile, after Ryan comes across a dead body, he tries to describe this to an Australian cop as an “ice cream“. In the trailer, this goes on briefly, with the cop not quite understanding, mistaking ‘crime’ for ‘cream’, resulting in Ryan asking with incredulity, “Why would I be reporting an ‘ice cream'(?)”
Now, that was a decent bit of humour, but in a film that’s largely devoid of laughs, they completely cut out the exchange! You see Ryan saying he wants to report an ‘ice crime’, and it immediately cuts to the next part of the scene! Why would you do that?!
Meanwhile, Ryder uses a lot of Post-It notes, so the point where one of the few comedic lines comes, “At this point, it’s Memento-level“, for the handful of people who’ve seen that brilliant Guy Pearce / Christopher Nolan movie. Similarly, a Notting Hill reference, “I’m just a boy, asking a girl…” etc.
Plus, it’s a bit stupid when it tries to get all meta by talking about split-screen in films, while using said effect.
When the big media reviews first came out for this, they all fell over themselves blabbering on about it being “a love letter to stuntpeople“, which translates as “We can’t think of how to review this, so will just use basic platitudes“. Never bothered with big media. They’ll never tell you what you need to hear. They just want their brand name on the poster.
The Fall Guy has a threadbare plot, stupid characters and writing, and is summed up by one of Ms Blunt’s lines, “I don’t know what that was. It was just so awful.”
Will we see a sequel? Well, this has been promoted to hell and back, so it will have to recoup around three times its reported budget of “$125-150m” in order to just break even. After being in the cinema since Thursday May 2nd, and as of May 7th, it’s taken a mere $69.6m, and with Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes from today, that will steal the IMAX and other premium screens from it.
There’s also a mid-credits scene, and you can find out more about that in the video above.
The Fall Guy is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray Limited Steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date TBA.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 126 minutes
Release date: May 2nd 2024
Studio: Universal Pictures
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (ARRIRAW (4.6K), Anamorphic Panavision, Spherical, Super 35)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 3/10
Director: David Leitch
Producers: Guymon Casady, Ryan Gosling, David Leitch, Kelly McCormick
Screenplay: Drew Pearce
Creator: Glen A Larson
Music: Dominic Lewis
Cast:
Colt Seavers: Ryan Gosling
Jody Moreno: Emily Blunt
Tom Ryder: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Gail Meyer: Hannah Waddingham
Iggy Starr: Teresa Palmer
Alma Milan: Stephanie Hsu
Dan Tucker: Winston Duke
Dressler: Ben Knight
Doone: Matuse
Nigel: Adam Dunn
Venti Kushner: Zara Michales
Birdie the PA: Ioane Sa’Ula
Rush McCabe: Gregory J Fryer
The Fall Guy: Lee Majors
Jody Banks: Heather Thomas
Himself: Jason Momoa (uncredited)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.