Photo courtesy of Instagram @thefallguymovie
With my AMC movie pass, I can see up to 12 movies a month. I make an effort to see one movie a week because this is the most I could realistically go. While I love having access to 12 movies, I think four is my max for the month.
This month, I was struggling with which movies I should go see. April had The Challengers, Monkey Man, and Civil War, all movies that I was highly anticipating. For months, I have been seeing the previews for The Fall Guy. Thanks to what I can assume was a massive marketing budget, it was on every billboard around the city, also. Despite this, for some reason, I had no interest in seeing it.
I ended up taking a leap of faith and seeing the movie after I heard a good review from a friend and I decided to give it a try. I can happily say that I was wrong for not initially wanting to see it!
This movie was simply a fun experience. Not every movie needs to be Oppenheimer and be Oscar-bait. Once again, this movie was Ryan Gosling reminding us to kick back and have a laugh. This movie could easily become a classic with all of its zest and joyfulness.
The movie is about a stuntman, Colt (played by Gosling), who falls in love with an aspiring director, Jody (played by Emily Blunt). After a near-death stunt accident, he decides to quit and leave the soon-to-be director in the dust. Unbeknownst to Jody, he gets back in the stunting game when the leading actor in her directorial debut goes missing. He now must find the actor he used to dub, but more importantly, save Jody’s movie.
The original trailers made me think that this would be a bro-comedy movie in the same vein of The Hangover. However, with quirky moments like Gosling singing along to “All Too Well”, I think the best comparison for this movie would be 21 Jump Street. Both movies have the kind of comedy that anyone can laugh along to and somehow you may even relate to.
What made The Fall Guy special was the love story between Gosling and Blunt’s characters. You are constantly rooting for the down-on-his-luck Colt and wishing that he would finally learn how to say the right thing. In his efforts to make things right, he seems to always be pushed in a different direction and leaving Jody left wondering simply “What is going on with this guy?!”.
While the comedy could be described as quirky, the movie didn’t feel overly cheesy. When the relationship develops between Colt and Jody, neither act in a way that isn’t reasonable to a normal, real-life person. They didn’t compromise the character's development for the sake of the comedy. Even when Colt gets framed for murder, Jody does a normal person thing and goes to the police with information that may be relevant to the case. You know, something they always seem to forget to do in movies!
My favorite movie of all time is La La Land and this movie reminded me how great of an actor Gosling is to go from serious musician to goofy boyfriend and be completely convincing in both. I guess that is the power of the cinema!
So, if you are looking for a fun movie experience, grab a friend or two and go see The Fall Guy.
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