RYAN Gosling is a screwball delight in this sweat-drenched stunt spectacle, showing this weekend at Bowen Cinemas.
David Leitch’s The Fall Guy celebrates the harmonious union between heart-stopping stunt work and charismatic movie stars.
Ryan Gosling, still high on that Ken-energy, embraces his uncanny ability to be both the coolest and the goofiest guy in the room, bringing his screwball energy to the role of seasoned stuntman Colt Seavers, as he attempts to win back the heart of his director, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).
Jody’s leading man Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, channelling just a hint of Matthew McConaughey) is missing.
He’s been in Australia, shooting Jody’s debut film Metalstorm, a sci-fi epic that sits precisely at the midpoint between Dune and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
Producer Gail Meyer (Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham) sends Colt to track him down.
In an industry first, Chris O’Hara has been credited as The Fall Guy’s ‘stunt designer’, versus the traditional ‘stunt coordinator’, in an effort to underline a stuntman’s artistry.
And, true to that promise, the film features a number of practical showstoppers, among them a record-breaking vehicular cannon roll, some drug-fuelled hand-to-hand combat, and an explosive speed boat jump.
Leitch treats these moments with adrenaline-doped reverence, akin to the shuttle launch in Armageddon or the jet take-offs in Top Gun.
Similarly, he purposefully draws attention to the wires, camera cranes, and small army of crew members required to make them possible.
Meanwhile, Drew Pearce’s script matches its zip although it can be overly reliant on pop culture (the scene of Colt sobbing to Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ works, however).
Blunt and Gosling have chemistry, and so does Gosling with everyone else, including co-stars Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu and – somehow – a dog called Jean-Claude, who only responds to French commands.
Ideologically, The Fall Guy is a film that pits craftsmanship against the fame-and-money-hungry – Colt is scanned by 360-degree cameras so that his face can be digitally replaced by Tom’s, all so he can later boast that he does his own stunts in interviews.
If the film results in stunt performers gaining a little more respect from the public, that’s the ideal.
If it merely reminds them how likeable Gosling is, that’s good too.
By Clarisse Loughrey.
