Thumb’s up for “The Fall Guy”: A delightfully lighthearted love letter to movie stunts.
Thor and I don’t watch many movies (we haven’t been in a theater since Covid hit along with my immune deficiencies), and our home watching of new ones has been mostly cheerless. Even many supposed comedies seem rather depressing or mean-spirited these days. A recent big disappointment was the anticipated “Barbie” with its wonderful opening sequence. After that, it all fell apart into well-worn, heavy-handed feminist messages that contradicted each other, along with a mess of a “plot” that just ended up boring. So when I saw a trailer for the recent “The Fall Guy,” a romantic action comedy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, I chuckled but hesitated. I hadn’t been a huge fan of Gosling in the few roles I’d seen, in which he struck me as taciturn and too highly-groomed, though I’d liked Blunt in previous roles. In the character of Colt Seavers, fearless stunt man or “fall guy,” Gosling embodied a persona more appealing to me – scruffy and irreverently humorous, not to mention really buffed.
And what clinched the ticket for me: My grandnephew Cody Shipman (his actual given name) had become a movie stunt performer a few years ago, and I was becoming more and more interested in how what he calls “gags” are accomplished.
(NOTE: stay tuned for an interview with Cody in next Saturday’s blog post here.)
From the opening sequence of a dangerous stunt gone awry on a movie shoot, I was hooked. Then I found myself laughing at the playful and affectionate humor in the maybe-second-chance romance between Colt Seavers and new director Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) after Seavers is called back by the producer from his post-injury hideout to work on Jody’s first film, to her surprise after he had “ghosted” her due to his injury. Along with the humor, there are also some touching moments where the actors shine. The main plot driver is some bad guys’ attempt to frame Seavers for a murder – trying to make him “the fall guy” – and lots of mayhem and gasp-inducing stunts ensue.
Plenty of quirky characters also abound, including a loyal stunt dog; Dan Tucker (Winston Duke) the big-bro movie stunt director; the egomaniac action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who insists to the public, “I do all my own stunts”; and especially the outrageously manipulative producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), adding to the humor. There’s a good balance between character development and connection/conflicts (I found dialogue captioning to be helpful with the quick repartee of many scenes), and the wild stunts on and off the fictional movie set.
Director David Leitch, himself a former stunt double for Brad Pitt and others, intended the movie to be a “love letter to stunts,” and all of the stunts are performed old-school by expert athletes, without special effects except to later erase the safety lines and landing pads.
Stay tuned during the credits for amusing behind-the-scenes clips of some of the stunts and their performers.
I enjoyed the movie so much that I had to see it twice (the second time with the captions), then did some Googling about the making of the movie. I learned that Gosling had five stunt doubles, and he has been very vocal in giving all the credit to them. But apparently director Leitch did put in a bit of “persuasion” to convince Gosling to perform a few of the stunts (or portions thereof) himself. Notably, Gosling had to overcome his fear of heights in order to be filmed falling face-up (in harness with wires later erased) from a 12-story building. With good humor, Gosling revealed in an interview that there was no reason he should be wearing sunglasses for the stunt, except to hide his terrified eyes.
Gosling also said that his favorite stunt in the movie was the “cannon roll,” in which a car outfitted with an air cannon is deliberately flipped to roll and crash. Stunt double Logan Holladay made a world record roll of 8.5 rolls, and the cast at the movie premier handed him the Guiness World Records certificate in honor of the feat. Said Gosling about Holladay: “You know you’re gonna wreck this car, and not only do you know it, you’re hoping to wreck it harder and faster and in a more insane way than anyone has ever wrecked before. That’s your goal. I love that scene as well because Logan also plays the guy that puts me in the car for a stunt he’s about to do. He breaks the record and then he pulls me out of the car and pats me on the back for the stunt he just achieved!”
Holladay also pulled off jumping a truck across a 225-foot canyon in the movie – without crashing, phew.
Another big stunt near the end of the movie involves a free fall of 150 feet from a helicopter into an air bag. Stunt double Troy Brown, who grew up with a stunt performer father and watching the old “The Fall Guy” TV series with Lee Majors (watch for a cameo appearance!), was excited at the chance to use the same air bag his father had used decades earlier. He found the original bag, had it brought to the site, and repaired it for the stunt. All of these stunts in films happen so quickly on the screen, but require meticulous planning and safety procedures, and trust among the team is crucial.
Another stunt double, Ben Jenkin, volunteered eagerly to be set on fire and slammed on a wire into a boulder – eight times! He commented, “It hurts getting slammed against the wall and set on fire. And you’re full of sand. It’s uncomfortable. All stunt performers have been in that situation where you do something and you’re like, ‘God, I hope we don’t have to do that again because that really hurt.’”
photo credit: Variety Magazine
In a key scene near the climax, Seavers finally has to break past his own tough-guy image and reveal his vulnerability to Jody, who has said she hated that stunt-performer tradition of always giving a thumbs-up even when hurt. In an interview, speaking about David Leitch and that scene, Gosling said, “Yeah, that’s lifted from what you [Leitch] straight up said to me. We were talking about how part of this story is that Colt hasn’t been able to communicate his feelings properly to Jody. It’s part of what he’s struggling with. And I was saying to Dave, ‘What is the truth? Like, what is it like to be a stuntperson, really?’ He was like, ‘Well, it hurts, you know. It all hurts. It hurts to get hit by a car. It hurts to go out a window. It hurts to get set on fire.’ And then we added, you know, nothing’s ever hurt as much as not being with Jody, because that’s really what Colt was trying to say.”
I hope you make some popcorn, watch the movie, and enjoy the action!
And don’t forget to check in here next Saturday, October 26, for my interview with Cody about his stunt performing:
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You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
