^{By: Amanda Guarragi}

The moviegoing climate has changed drastically in the past five years, and we’ve seen the tide shift with the demand for action films. After the success of Oppenheimer and Barbie, it seems audiences are craving more substance, uniqueness, and originality. Granted, the price of admission has skyrocketed. And streaming services have taken away the need for anyone to make a trip to the theatre. It has been the opposite for over a decade, so why the change now? Why are people craving a different calibre of film? It comes down to quantity over quality on streaming services. This is why an action film like The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, should be doing well with audiences. After coming out of the SXSW film festival with buzzing reviews, the critical reception has changed drastically. There’s a small percentage of critics, like myself, who felt that something was missing. 

While watching David Leitch’s The Fall Guy, there’s a sense of feeling underwhelmed and waiting for the film to find its footing. Apart from the killer needle drop of “I Was Made For Loving You” by KISS to set the hype level an action junkie craves, everything else felt empty. Leitch is known to have incredible action sequences and strong character dynamics, but this sadly fell short. The chemistry between Gosling and Blunt was the main reason the film didn’t work. Leitch and writer Drew Pearce attempted to sell a romance film masked as an action movie, but there was no balance. Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the best stuntman in the business and he falls in love with camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). On a regular day of shooting alongside the lead actor Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Colt has a freak accident taking him out of the industry indefinitely. After two years, Colt recovers and gets a call from producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) to help Jody with the stunts. 

Although this may sound inspiring, it all happens too quickly. The relationship between Jody and Colt is underdeveloped. They do not spend nearly enough time together to warrant anyone caring about them or if they end up together (which they do), but the conventions with romance are generic. It’s the journey with the characters that makes it enjoyable. Colt goes on this separate journey while Jody is oblivious to the task Gail has given him. He utilizes his stunt-man fighting techniques and agility to track down Tom Ryder. Conceptually, The Fall Guy should have been effortless in the choreography department, but even showcasing how important stuntmen are to the industry was extremely weak. There’s more credit given to the sound design team because they elevated the action set pieces with what they incorporated. It seemed stylistically Leitch held back, comparatively to Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train. It could have been because of the PG-13 rating, but that shouldn’t be a factor in well-directed action scenes. 

Furthermore, the script became a massive problem. Ryan Gosling is naturally a funny person. He’s charismatic and straight-faced when he needs to be. His performances in Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Nice Guys and Barbie, are prime examples of his incredible comedic talents. Unfortunately, the humour was stale and none of the jokes landed. The worst part is you could feel Gosling go above and beyond with his performance to make up for the underwhelming writing. Most of the dialogue was set up for a cringe-worthy punchline that felt forced. When comedic lines are planted and forced, they never work. This was one of my most anticipated films of the year because of the Gosling/Blunt chemistry off-screen and the film became my first massive disappointment of 2024. The motivation for the antagonist was weak which caused the third act of this film to fall apart. The final action sequence was fun in context, but the ode to stuntmen was also undervalued because of the conflict in the film.