THE FALL GUY (2024)

Since on some level all Hollywood films exist mainly to make money, when one solely made for that purpose seriously underperforms, that becomes the sole thing the film is about: commercial disappointment.  So it goes for director David Leitch whose last film, BULLET TRAIN/’22, also didn't deliver, but with that film's Brad Pitt, rather than this film's Ryan Gosling suffering the damage.  Gosling, fresh off BARBIE, lowers himself from subversive satirist to pandering audience-pleaser as the designated stunt man to cinema’s top action star.  He's doubly wounded on the job: Professionally when a stunt goes badly wrong; and Romantically when his injuries cause hm to be separated from the film’s D.P. & new lady love Emily Blunt (weirdly wooden).  A year and a half later, he’s called back to action by the star’s producer/manager (Hannah Waddingham, wildly overplaying) to stunt again for his longtime employer, moody, and currently missing Aaron Taylor-Johnson who's starring in Blunt’s directing debut.  The story gimmick is that he’s not just The Fall Guy (as in stunt double), but also The Fall Guy (as in being setup to take the fall on a murder rap).  With near constant stunting, you can see how this could work.  And from the hyper-active prologue thru the first act, it largely does.  But once the film’s ‘70s style Black wingman (Winston Duke) gets bumped into a mysterious shoot-‘em-up/inner-city car chase against him & Gosling, everything goes into terminal overdrive.  It’s also impossible to follow.  (Which one assumes is meant to be the film's overriding meta-joke.)  One of those films where cast & crew seem to have had a much better time making it than you will watching it.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  For a better stunt man movie, try HOOPER/’78 (with Burt Reynolds on good form) or, even better, Richard Rush’s seriously deranged wonder THE STUNTMAN/’80 with Peter O’Toole and the unlucky Steve Railsback.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/12/hooper-1978.html

CONTEST:  The film-within-the-film Blunt is directing looks like Space Cowboys on a DUNE-like alien planet, but is summed up for us as HIGH NOON at the Edge of the Universe.  Oddly, a film fitting that exact description was made some time back.  Name it to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of a streaming film of your choice.