The Fall Guy: an action comedy like we don't make anymore [critique]

The director of Bullet Train turns Ryan Gosling into a stuntman caught in a plot that is beyond his control. A success.

Stuntman turned director, David Leitch strives to consider action cinema as a primarily human affair, at a time when digital technology is eating into the work of stunt men. It is therefore logical that he adapts the series The man who fell at the right timeof which he keeps the stunt hero but changes almost everything else. The Fall Guy arrives this Saturday evening on Canal +and it features Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), a gifted fall technician, whose career is stopped short by a serious accident. Colt drops everything, the movies as well as his budding love for a camera assistant (Emily Blunt, obviously impeccable). But when the most famous actor in the world disappears (Aaron Taylor-Johnson imitating Matthew McConaughey, a treat), it is strangely he who is called upon to find him…

The spirit of Shane Black floats above this action comedy which crushes the privileged of Hollywood (the producers; the stars with colossal bowlers) to better triumph the creatives and the blue-collar workers (directors and stuntmen). A tribute to little hands which also looks towards Babylon in his disgust with the system and his fascination with the making of images. But even without this double reading, The Fall Guy remains one crowd pleaser euphoric, where Ryan Gosling recalls the extent of his comic timing between two spectacular action scenes. And the real surprise is the authenticity of the thwarted love story at the heart of the film, which connects the story to very human issues despite its cartoonish excesses.

Trailer:

David Leitch – The Fall Guy: “Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, it was obvious” [interview]