David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy” (2024) positively revels in its incredible cheesiness. It is spectacularly silly, but Leitch capitalizes on it, turning it into one of the film’s biggest strengths. The film’s commitment to its bonkers spirit, with characters leaping into impulsive, frenetic bouts of action, distinguishes it from generic, cut-and-dried popcorn cinema that ultimately tries to piggyback on a quickly dressed-up immaculate logic. Yes, the characters plunge into wild adventures, and the film doesn’t deny us the pleasure.
One also needs to emphasize the absolutely winsome chemistry between the leads, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, who pump industrial-strength charm into the film. The actors share the familiar, easy comfort of old friends. The film doesn’t demand much from Blunt but she invests every opportunity she gets with an immense emotional generosity.
There’s a lightness of being in the talent embodied by the duo. The effortlessness with which Gosling and Blunt jive together makes “The Fall Guy” compulsively enjoyable, even if the gags are slight and unevenly laid out in the screenplay. This isn’t an uproariously funny film yet Leitch succeeds at conjuring quite a rollicking blast (literally) of an experience. It zips by comfortably, coasting on the lovely energy of its actors (a standout Hannah Waddingham, delightful as a producer, almost neurotically driven) and a smooth narrative that doesn’t overstretch its plethora of stunts. However, the film could have done with some snipping.
The Fall Guy (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
This is an ode to the celebrated hero’s stunt double, a figure that does most of the heavy lifting and ends up with barely any acknowledgment. It’s a thankless job that is premised on the stuntman’s perceived invincibility, which “The Fall Guy” does well in destabilizing. The film doesn’t erect granite stereotypes but presents the action guys as malleable, vulnerable, and prone to getting all roughed up. Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is one of the best stunt guys in the business. The film opens with his voice. He is known as the double of Tom Ryder (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) and romantically linked to Jody (Emily Blunt), a camera operator on the project that the film begins with. However, there’s a tragic accident due to a rigging fault, and Colt ends up badly injured. He quits the business and disappears on Jody, retreating into a different life.
When Gail (Hannah Waddingham), a longtime producer and Ryder’s representative, calls on Colt to return to his former life as a stuntman, Colt is resistant. It has been an interval of eighteen months. The accident was life-reorienting, and he had redesigned his life in a new direction altogether, leaving behind his stunt days for good. However, when Gail informs the project is Jody’s debut as a director and that she has specifically requested his presence, Colt reconsiders the proposal and quickly changes his mind. The spark hasn’t dimmed and he knows he has to be there for Jody and support her in whichever capacity he can and not disappoint her, even if they haven’t been on talking terms for a while. So, Colt lands on the sets of Jody’s film.
Jody is utterly surprised. She hadn’t asked for him. She is annoyed and asks him how he could even think she thought of him when they haven’t shared a word in more than a year. Moreover, Jody is deeply disappointed and heartbroken. She had envisaged a future with him, and he shut her out completely. Colt realizes he has to make amends. Gail tells Colt that the real reason she has brought him is to find Tom, who has been missing, and usher him back on set within two days. Thus begins a search and adventure that goes into wild, unexpected places and wacky encounters. Tom has gotten mixed up with drug dealers and trapped himself in shady obligations, Gail says.
Colt is earnest in his pursuit especially because of Tom’s necessary, required presence on Jody’s set, without whom the film could potentially fall apart. Colt ends up being drugged, but he braves through it all, ultimately stumbling across a dead man in an iced-up bathtub in the hotel room where Tom is supposed to have been. A series of convoluted situations occurs with him getting into possession of Tom’s phone, which is revealed as having a video that essentially proves Tom has killed a man, Henry, another stunt double. This is the guy whose body Colt had seen in the tub.
Why is Colt pursued?
Colt’s possession of Tom’s phone containing evidence makes him a target for a bunch of goons. In the middle of a shootout, the phone gets damaged. Colt is picked up by the men. There’s a confrontation between Colt and Tom, the latter informing how he and Gail had planned the entire operation of bringing Colt back and framing him for the murder of Henry. It turns out Tom had actually engineered Colt’s accident. There’s also a plan to kill Colt, designing it as suicide. Somehow, Colt escapes from the scene.
The Fall Guy (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Colt prove his innocence?
In a clandestine fashion, Colt, who is assumed dead, meets Jody and informs her of everything, including how Gail had been behind his being framed for murder. Together, they hatch a plan that will extract a confession out of Tom to the murder since the original evidence has vanished. Gail is startled at a new scene being constructed of which she had no knowledge, especially because it involves Tom. Unbeknownst to Tom and Gail, Colt plants himself beside Tom in the car, taking off while attempting to extract the confession. Buckling under the pressure of circumstances, Tom slips it all, not realizing he is all wired up.
Gail discovers it and tries to escape with the tape recording of the confession. She gets herself and Tom into a helicopter, jetting off, but of course, Colt is at their heels. Colt scoops himself into the helicopter, managing to extricate the recording and leaping out. It is quite a happy ending, with Jody’s film trailer premiering at Comic-Con, where it is revealed Jason Momoa has replaced Tom. The post-credits scene depicts Gail being arrested and Tom trying to flee and ending up being blown in the pyrotechnics.
