David Leitch’s The Fall Guy skillfully marries a love letter to the stunt community and the romance genre with sharp comedic beats and impeccable performances that result in an unforgettable achievement. It’s easily one of the best films of the year, and one meant to be experienced on the big screen.
Coming off the high of last year’s film spectacle, Barbenheimer, everything about The Fall Guy caters to the art of filmmaking. It homages the people average film viewers don’t think about, and it tests its boundaries by putting underdogs at the helm to dig into what it means to truly adore the magic of movies. It’s not about boasting or the stereotypes that make stars, but it’s about the artistry that creative people orbit around when telling the stories that matter to them.
The Fall Guy Is Unapologetically Romantic
In its means of playing with familiar tropes and edging them further, Drew Pearce and Glen A. Larson give Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling astute material to play with and enhance through the screenplay. At the same time, while much relies on Leitch’s vision to underscore the feelings underneath, the tastefully enhanced play on the second chance romance trope isn’t something I ever thought we’d see in a film like this. It’s everything you want Casino Royale to be, which is still, to this day, the one action film that perfectly melds romance into the plot.
Further, much of the film ultimately relies on Blunt and Gosling’s chemistry, which is utterly transcendental. The humor, the contrasts in their personality types, and the moments of vulnerability all come to life with exceptional ease because Blunt and Gosling lean fully into what their characters want to convey. Romance often takes a backseat in high-octane action films, but it’s the driving force of The Fall Guy as it represents a story about what it means to love not only a person but films and stories.
There’s something to be said about how the marketing of this film also allows Blunt and Gosling to have an absolute blast with the genre because, with it, they destigmatize all the negativity that often surrounds romance and how it’s “easy” to master. In fact, the meta-storytelling within The Fall Guy makes it unmistakable that no part of storytelling is simply black or white. Thus, when the complexities of characterizations, plot, execution, exposition, VFX, and relationships come to life, they shimmer with the care and attention that’s put into crafting the film as a love letter for cinema. And, if I do say so myself, a love letter to romance.
Everything About the Film Works
There’s nothing about The Fall Guy that feels out of place, forced, or unnecessary. It features some of the best needle drops in cinematic history, which pleases me to say that the scene involving Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” is even better than viewers imagine from the small trailer clip. The score, the cinematography, the special effects, and the intricate flashes involving the audience in the film’s storytelling are achievements in more ways than one.
Finally, you can’t exit a film like The Fall Guy without a newfound, brilliant appreciation for everything the stunt community brings to filmmaking. There’s a lot that film aficionados negate when viewing films through a critical lens when it comes to awards and credits. The power of excellent stunt work is among those things, so seeing a film pay tribute to the strengths within will impact viewers tremendously. The film is thoroughly entertaining and an absolute eruption full of joy, but it’s also significant in the weight it carries and how much it thoughtfully represents and honors.
The Fall Guy releases exclusively in theaters on May 3rd.