Now in theaters:
The Fall Guy--Beyond the title, this action comedy only borrows a little from Glen Larson's TV series, which ran on ABC from 1981 to 1986: the basic premise, the names of the main characters and the cornpone theme song over the closing credits. But it seems intended as a semi-throwback, a modern take on the easygoing car stunt movies and TV shows popular from the mid-'70s to the mid-'80s, not only The Fall Guy but Hooper and the Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run pictures.
Directed by stunt veteran David Leitch from a script by Drew Pearce, The Fall Guy concerns a Hollywood stuntman with the perfect '80s TV name of Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) who drops out of the industry after an on-set accident. A noxious producer (Hannah Waddingham) persuades him to get back in the saddle, doubling for a putridly narcissistic star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) on a sci-fi actioner being shot in Sydney. Mostly Colt goes because he's in love with the director, Jody (Emily Blunt). Before long, however, he realizes that he's been pulled into the project for more sinister reasons.
None of this is meant to be taken very seriously; the tone is near-farcical, though sometimes with a macabre edge. The plot is just an excuse for a string of spectacular car, boat, aerial and combat stunts, both in the movie-within-the-movie and in the external story.
The stars are strong. Gosling gets across some of the same addled, highly sympathetic goofiness that he showed as Ken in Barbie, and he seems to bring out the best in Blunt. Always capable, she has a delightful openhearted sweetness here. The villains--Taylor-Johnson, Waddingham and their brutish henchmen--are also on point, and overall, the movie goes down easy; it's not bad. It's a lot of movie to just be not bad, I suppose, but I certainly found it preferable to the modern iteration of the stunt movie, the humorless and possibly pernicious Fast and the Furious flicks.
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