Upon seeing this initial trailer for The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, it was as if the clouds had parted and the unknowable muse spirits who gift humans with creative ideas had answered my deepest prayers.
To be real, though, my knee-jerk reaction to the first few seconds was, “A SEQUEL TO DRIVE!?”
Joking. Was joking. The reality is even better. The Fall Guy looks to be a phenomenal showcase of Gosling’s supreme comedic chops, which I don’t think he’ll ever get enough credit for. I do not exaggerate in the least when I say his PI Holland March in The Nice Guys is one of the single-funniest movie characters I’ve seen in my life.
Gosling’s performance opposite Russell Crowe is comedy acting perfection personified. The fact that The Nice Guys still hasn’t gotten a sequel and probably never will is one of the great travesties in recent Hollywood memory.
The even cooler thing is that The Fall Guy is directed by David Leitch, who has a history as a stunt performer and has employed Gosling in the role of a stuntman who gets caught up in a larger conspiracy. Not to mention a love affair with Emily Blunt’s director character.
With credits like Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train on his resume, I’m pretty confident Leitch is as good as anyone at juggling action and humor. Those prior projects starred Ryan Reynolds and Brad Pitt respectively. Now, Leitch has literally the perfect leading man in Gosling, who’s playing a supporting character in what is to me a sort of meta nod to Pitt’s Oscar-winning turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Such a cool premise, too. Basically, the biggest fictional action star Tom Ryder (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, also in Bullet Train) goes missing. Gosling’s Colt Seavers is Ryder’s perpetual stunt double and is tasked with locating him. It’s pretty straightforward, but that’s great. There’s also the emotional anchor of obvious, crackling chemistry between Gosling and Blunt. That’ll only add more comedy to the mix.
This just looks flat-out sick. I can’t wait to see Gosling crush, especially after how funny he was in Barbie. In reading more up on The Fall Guy, it’s based on an ’80s TV show of the same name. As far back as 2013, the director-lead actor tandem was slated to be McG and Dwayne Johnson.
So while this was in development hell and that doesn’t often bode well, I think they found the right creative team to make this Fall Guy revival a huge hit. Cheers to that.
