First Take: The Fall Guy - stuntmen get more love than the people who actually put the films on

SYNOPSIS: A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend’s blockbuster film.

When you have a film which involves a LOT of stunts naturally you have to look to the work of David Leitch- a former stuntman turned director who brought us the insane violence in John Wick, the self referential madness of Deadpool 2, and most recently making Bullet Train entirely during lockdown. So naturally, a film inspired by the TV series of the same name (not a direct reboot as a lot of people think) required a director like him - and while it is a fun film, it’s not without a few major flaws.

Leitch does an OK job pacing this film, coming in at 2 hours 5 minutes it gets the job done, but again, like a lot of these major films coming in at the minute, a few cuts here and there wouldn’t have been a bad idea. Sadly, Drew Pearce’s script just doesn’t know what it wants to be, which is a a shame considering how good his other scripts have been - one minute the romance is crucial, the next minute there’s a big action setpiece… it feels like a project which has been in development hell for over a decade. It’s shot really well by Jonathan Sela (Leitch’s DOP of choice) in the way you’d expect with these two collaborating, and the Dominic Lewis score is pretty genius with its integration of a Kiss track which opens the film in style. And then, of course, the stunts themselves. Most of them practical (especially the car roll which has taken the world record from Casino Royale), some using some fairly obvious CG - and stay back during the credits folks, just to see HOW it was all done.

Onto the cast then, and it is fairly obvious that Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling - the box office saviours of 2023 (with their involvement in Oppenheimer and Barbie) felt like the ideal choice to carry a silly, very comedic movie like this, and with Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Teresa Palmer rounding out a cast who do a really good job with the material given to them, plus without spoiling too much, there are some lovely cameos too for good measure. Tech issues aside, and with a LOT from the trailers not actually making it into the final cut, it’s a film which has highlights littered with lowlights - let’s just hope that Universal see sense to keep it a one and done entry in the franchise.

THE VERDICT

The Fall Guy is a fun enough film for what it needs to be, one which doesn’t take itself seriously - I doubt it’ll make much traction in its aim to get the under-the-line talent recognised at a certain award show, and opening now ahead of the big summer window has hurt its chances box office wise. It’s a proper Saturday night family outing, not a big blockbuster. It will find its crowd, but it’s gonna lose a lot of screens next week in all honesty.

RATING: 3/5