Have you ever thought about how first world the profession of “stuntman” is? First off, it is a tiny part of the entertainment industry – and, although it pains me to say this, please know it comes from somebody who has blogged over 3,000 movie reviews: entertainment is not a human necessity … or, at least it wasn’t before the television was invented. Beyond that, we have a set of people whose job it is to make the images on our screens more appealing. Many are paid ridiculous salaries to do this. And, yet, for whatever reason, we still need to employ low-paid specialists to do the on-screen (and often difficult) jobs that the people who get paid ridiculous sums of money are not doing. And we almost never acknowledge or reward the jobs the specialists do.
In sports terms, stuntmen and stuntwomen are like pinch-hitters, or, better yet, the punter: even if they’re the best player on the team, even if their actions make the difference in the game between win and loss, you’re still gonna ignore them and attribute the victory to somebody else.
Is there an historical equivalent? When Shakespeare put on Romeo and Juliet at The Globe, were there doubles for the sword fighting scenes? In Greek theater, did somebody besides Oedipus get his eyes plucked out? In any court of royalty, is there a guy who subs for the Court Jester when he tells a difficult joke? I’m thinking Stuntmen are relatively unique to modern media.
And DO NOT GET ME WRONG, 1st world or niche as the profession might be, stuntpeople are important. Occasionally, the profession rewards them as the subject of a movie, like Hooper, The Stunt Man, or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And it’s neither uncommon nor wrong that these films turn out to be winners, like today’s 2024 introduction-to-summer, The Fall Guy.
Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling, nee Lee Majors) was the favored stunt double for action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) until he broke his back performing a very dangerous stunt. What is the insurance/health care sitch for stunt people, anyway? Film didn’t cover it, but I’m guessing it has been the subject of at least one strike already, no? Before the accident, Colt was in love with up-and-coming cinematographer Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). The two had a Hollywood-adorable relationship.
Then Colt disappeared.
Eighteen months later, Colt is a valet. He’s still in wonderful shape, which seems a testament to a decent physical rehab program, but his mental rehab needs a lot of work, as demonstrated when he jumps at a chance to be Ryder’s stunt guy, once again, in Metalstorm, a silly, over-the-top, Cowboys & Aliens sci-fi stunt spectacular directed by (now) first timer, Jody Moreno.
So Colt hops on the first flight to Australia, where he instantly does a beach stunt which involves rolling a car for eight full revolutions, all to get his heart stomped because Jody did not ask for him. That decision was made by the film’s producer, Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), who summoned Colt not only for the stunts, but also to locate the missing star of the film, which seems like something of a noir plot were this film set in 1930s b&w Los Angeles.
That isn’t this film.
The Fall Guy is a grade A action film; it’s also a B+ romance, a B mystery, a B+ thriller, and an A- comedrama. Yet perhaps the best parts of the film have nothing to do with any of that. Honestly, what I loved th
e most about The Fall Guy was the intensely self-conscious nature of the film, like when Jody calls up Colt to ask if Metalstorm should go split-screen in a scene to demonstrate the physical and symbolic distance between would-be lovers exactly as The Fall Guy itself goes split-screen to demonstrate the same.
This is most definitely a “how the sausage is made” kind of film where the camera has no shame in showing us the set-up behind a stunt. The payoff is that the stunt is impressive anyway. I don’t think I can stress this enough. On the surface, The Fall Guy is a goofy romcomdram with two lovely leads we’re happy to follow around for a while. Behind the screenplay, however, this film is a clever homage to stuntpeople, demonstrating fully how movie stunts are performed v. how they show on screen. And the technical work is every bit at skillful as it needs to be. Just like the romance could fall apart at any second if we don’t buy the chemistry between Gosling and Blunt, the action falls apart completely if we don’t buy every stunt person in the film as performing genuine stunts.
I suppose one could spend paragraphs nitpicking about plot fallacies and such. Lord knows I do that a lot. But my major question here is “Why would you?” The Fall Guy is a lot of fun in a lot of different ways. Enjoy it for what it is and you almost can’t go wrong. My biggest problem with this film, honestly, is that the end credits didn’t give greater service to the stuntpeople honored by the 120 minutes that proceeded them.
The once was a stunt man called Colt
Whose feathers had begun to molt
Though a year of traction
Then *poof* back to action
Giving both career and love life a jolt
Rated PG-13, 126 Minutes
Director: David Leitch
Writer: Drew Pearce, Glen A. Larson
Genre: Making a movie about making a movie about making a movie about …
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Stuntpeople
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who routinely ignore stuntpeople
