David Leitch’s The Fall Guy opens on a man falling. Colt Seavers, a stuntman played by Ryan Gosling, drops from a great height and lands wrong. The broken back ends his career, ends his relationship with camerawoman Jody Moreno, and sends him back to work as a valet at a small Mexican restaurant. That is the setup. What follows is a crime story wearing a romantic comedy’s clothes, and the clothes fit better than they have any right to.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures.
Colt Seavers and the Broken Back
The Fall Guy is loosely based on the 1980s TV series, and Leitch, a former stunt performer, directs Drew Pearce’s script with a working man’s knowledge of the trade. The film runs 127 minutes and carries three genres on its back: action, comedy, romance. It premiered at SXSW on March 12, 2024, and Universal Pictures released it in the United States on May 3.
The premise is simple enough. Eighteen months after the accident, producer Gail Meyer, played by Hannah Waddingham, contacts Colt and tells him Jody is directing her first film, a space opera called Metalstorm, and that she wants Colt to join the production in Sydney. Colt arrives to learn Jody never asked for him. She is still furious about their breakup, and the film itself serves as a less-than-subtle attempt to air her grievances at him.
That is the first smart move. The romance is not a subplot bolted onto the action. It is the engine.
Tom Ryder Disappears in Sydney
Then Gail reveals the real problem. Tom Ryder, the action star played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, has disappeared after getting into trouble with “very bad people.” Gail wants Colt to find him before the absence cancels an already-overbudget film. Colt agrees, mostly because he does not want Jody’s directorial debut ruined.
What follows is a conspiracy plot that keeps moving and rarely makes sense. Colt visits Tom’s apartment and meets Iggy Starr, Tom’s girlfriend and co-star, played by Teresa Palmer. A lead from Iggy sends him to a nightclub, where a drug dealer named Doone tricks him into drinking a cocktail laced with a hallucinogen. A fight with Doone’s henchmen follows. Then Colt checks Tom’s hotel room and finds a dead body in a bathtub full of ice. He returns with the police. The body is gone.
A Dead Body and a Disappearing Phone
The plot mechanics are the weakest part of The Fall Guy. The bathtub is a good image. The vanishing corpse is a good hook. But the film never quite decides how seriously to take any of it, and the conspiracy ends up as scaffolding for set pieces rather than a story with stakes.
What holds it together is the cast. Winston Duke plays Dan Tucker, Colt’s long-time friend and stunt coordinator, and gives the film its steadiest presence. Stephanie Hsu appears as Alma Milan, Tom’s personal assistant, who hands Colt Tom’s phone before she and Colt are attacked by Tom’s head of security, Dressler, played by Ben Knight. Adam Dunn is on hand as crew member Nigel. Zara Michales plays Venti Kushner, the visual effects supervisor.
Emily Blunt is the reason to buy a ticket. Jody could have been a nag or a prize. Blunt plays her as neither, and the scenes where she and Colt rekindle their relationship while the production rolls on are the film’s best.
Ryan Gosling Does His Own Falling
Gosling is funny in a register he has not used much before: a man who is very good at one thing and has no idea what to do with the rest of his life. The Fall Guy asks him to be a movie star playing a man who doubles for a movie star, and he handles the joke cleanly without winking at it.
The tagline reads “Fall hard,” and the film means it in both senses. The stunts are practical and legible, which matters in a movie about the people who take the hits. Leitch shoots them so you can see the work.
The original series gets its due. Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, who played Colt Seavers and Jody Banks on television, appear in a mid-credits scene, with Majors credited as “The Fall Guy.” Jason Momoa shows up uncredited as himself. Justin Eaton, Gosling’s real-life stunt double, plays Henry, the stunt double who is accidentally killed. Two female Australian Kelpies play Jean-Claude, the dog that only understands French commands.
What The Fall Guy Gets Right
Ranking the film’s strengths, in order:
- Blunt and Gosling’s romantic scenes, which carry the film whenever the conspiracy stalls.
- The stunt work, shot with a craftsman’s eye rather than a franchise’s.
- The supporting cast, particularly Duke and Waddingham.
- The conspiracy plot, which is the film’s weakest element and its most disposable.
The Fall Guy is a film about the people who fall so the stars do not have to. It knows that is a good subject. It also knows it is a good joke.
Why the Box Office Numbers Matter
The reviews were generally positive. The box office was not. The Fall Guy grossed $181 million worldwide against a production budget of $125–150 million, and the studio lost around $50 million.
That number is the real story here. A film this well cast, this well made and this likable, opening the summer on a May weekend, should not have lost money. The Fall Guy is not a failure of craft. It is a failure of the market to show up for anything that is not already a franchise, and a reminder that a movie can be good and still be a bad bet.
The film’s own subject is stunts. The industry’s subject, increasingly, is whether anyone will pay for them.
The Verdict on The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy is not a great film. The conspiracy is thin, the runtime is long, and the third act leans on spectacle where it could lean on the two people at its center. But it is a good time, made by people who know what they are doing, and it earns its ending.
The published critical score is 7.3/10, and that is the right number. The Fall Guy is worth the fall.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
