BEFORE: I'll probably be posting late tonight, even though NewFest is over, I've to work another event tonight, and then the Tribeca Film Festival starts on Thursday. If I should fall behind, I've got two skip days in June that I can use, and still stay on track. I'll try to stay current as best as I can, I just may be posting at 1 am or 2 am in the days to come.
Ryan Gosling carries over from "The United States of Leland".
THE PLOT: A stuntman, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job.
AFTER: Yesterday's movie used the language of film (flashbacks, non-linear editing) to really confuse the audience, while today's movie uses different techniques to entertain us with a wink, really, as it should be. Case in point - two characters are speaking by phone about using the "split-screen" effect in "Metalstorm" (the movie-within-the-movie), and while they're talking, they are shown via split screen themselves. Because of course they are - this film is more self-referential than even "Barbie" was, and that's saying something. There are probably a hundred more meta-jokes like this, if you think about it - "Metalstorm" features a lot of stunts, and for every stunt that we see being filmed for THAT movie, at the same time it's just one of the many stunts seen in "The Fall Guy", so that means there are stuntmen playing themselves, or perhaps it's a stuntman filling in for Ryan Gosling, who's playing a stunt man himself, though of course Gosling probably doesn't DO his own stunts. So the stunt man HAS a stunt man, and thankfully the similarities to "Inception" end there, we really only go two levels in, it's not like "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" which went like four or FIVE levels deep to give us a story within a story within a story within a story.
When we see two Hummer electric cars and we're told that they're there for product placement on "Metalstorm", it's a safe bet that GM paid for the Hummers to be in "The Fall Guy", and this was just there way of doing that. There are a TON of other references like this, it's almost Deadpool-like how often the characters are seemingly aware of how they're really in a movie, without actually breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to camera.
OK, we know that Aaron Taylor-Johnson is an actor, but he's playing an actor here (Tom Ryder) who's playing a character, that's three levels in, which is really as far as we need to go. Is a stuntman an actor, or just a stuntman? For my purposes, I don't keep track of stunt work as "appearances", because so much of their work is designed to be invisible - it's enough work for me to keep track of the actors each year. I know that the IMDB keeps track of stunt work, but it's in a different category as "cast", even though occasionally there's some overlap. So that's my model, I don't count stunt work. The theme song for this film (like the 1980's TV show) is called "Unknown Stuntman" and I'm all for keeping it that way, sorry.
This is a VAST improvement over the TV series of the same name, BTW. I don't remember watching too many of those episodes with Lee Majors (who makes a cameo at the end of this film) but let's be honest, he was never one of America's greatest thespians, he could just headline an action show like "Six Million Dollar Man", but he wasn't much for the nuances of acting. Ryan Gosling has charm, sex appeal (hell, I'd switch), and can also play the lovable loser to the point where you want to root for him, and that's not an easy thing. Emily Blunt is fine, but really, anybody could have played that role. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is another stand-out playing the conceited, entitled actor who may or may not be based on someone currently headlining a different top-notch action movie (I assume). "Cruise" is a synonym for "ride", as in Tom "Ryder", just saying.
Hannah Waddingham, who you probably know from "Ted Lasso", if you watch that show (I don't, who has time?) plays the producer who's got six different agendas at one time, she calls Colt Seavers back into action saying that his ex, Jody, requested him to do a specific stunt, so he flies to Australia to do the stunt, but then learns that Jody did NOT expect to see him there, so what is the deal? Also, where is Tom Ryder, the star of the film? Colt is enlisted to find him, and solving that mystery might also explain WHY Colt was called in by Hannah, and what happened to the previous stand-in/stuntman for Tom. So when all the pieces are put together and Colt is suddenly framed via deep-fake for murder, he becomes a "Fall Guy" for the crime, it's another wink at the audience, a double meaning for the title of the film. Very clever.
There's evidence on a cell phone, and Colt has to team up with Tom's trained dog, Jean-Claude, to chase after Tom's personal assistant, who has been abducted by some goons driving a garbage truck. This leads to an extreme chase through the streets of Sydney with Colt leaping from vehicle to vehicle and getting punched out by one of the goons in the truck bed. But finally he gets the phone, unlocks it by figuring out Tom's password, and the true criminal is revealed. Only now they have to get the evidence on the phone to the authorities, which won't be easy because there are a lot of goons on the payroll.
Another chase scene, this one by boat, and wouldn't you know it, Colt mentioned earlier that he did a stunt for the "Miami Vice" live show at Universal Studios, where he had to jump a boat through a ring of fire, and he got so good at it that he could do it with his hands tied behind his back. What are the odds of that needing to happen again? Really, pay attention to the dialogue here, because everything is important and little Easter eggs are everywhere. It sure looks like Colt died when that boat blew up, but come on, we all know better, right?
All that's left to do is to get the real murderer to admit to the crime, which is easy when you're on a set with microphones all around, right? Then just exonerate Colt, finish the film, and release it to wide acclaim, fall back in love and live happily ever after, simple as that. Only nothing here is very simple at all, is it now? Well, no matter, we'll fix it in post. Really, this is just plain fun and excitement with a lot of inside jokes. Or maybe it just seems great in comparison to "The United States of Leland", which was a hot pile of garbage.
Directed by David Leitch (director of "Bullet Train" and "Atomic Blonde")
Also starring Emily Blunt (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (last seen in "Bullet Train"), Hannah Waddingham (last heard in "The Garfield Movie"), Teresa Palmer (last seen in "Message from the King"), Stephanie Hsu (last heard in "The Monkey King"), Winston Duke (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Ben Knight, Matuse (last seen in "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga"), David Collins (ditto), Adam Dunn (last seen in "Elvis"), Zara Michales (last seen in "The Invisible Man"), Ioane Saula, Gregory J. Fryer, Madeleine Wilson, Kalkidan China, Angela Nica Sullen, Di Smith (last seen in "Muriel's Wedding"), Megan O'Connell (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Jack Doherty, Tony Lynch, Georgia Nottage, Semu Filipo (last seen in "Next Goal Wins"), Andy Owen, Dan Reardon, Marky Lee Campbell, Chris Matheson, Tim Franklin, Scott Johnson, Beth Champion, Emily Havea, Lawrence Ola, Cassandra Sorrell, Ben Gerrard, Diego Retamales, Andrew Ryan, Justin Eaton, with cameos from Lee Majors (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Heather Thomas (last seen in "The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission"), Jason Momoa (last seen in "Slumberland"),
RATING: 8 out of 10 hallucinated unicorns
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