The Fall Guy Dir: David Leitch ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

Three … Two … One … Action! They are in every action movie, but you don’t know they are there. They are not the heroes of the story, and their parts in any film are not acknowledged by any of the awards. They are just the stunt guys.

Former stunt guy for over twenty years, director David Leitch, has excelled in capturing the dedication and danger of the unacknowledged stunt performers.

This film has all the pyrotechnics, car chases and crashes, fights, falls, firearms and trained dogs in the making of the film within the film Metalstorm.

The main stuntman Colt Seavers is played by Ryan Gosling, who actually does some stunts in the film, including being dragged behind a truck across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a shovel.

After a near career-ending accident that derailed his confidence, Seavers has spent the last year avoiding people, including the former love of his life Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), who has asked him to be in the film she is directing.

The making of Metalstorm, the Comic-con aimed Sci-Fi love story between a Space Cowboy and an alien, exposes the work done by stunt performers and provides a background to delve into both the physical and the emotional toil suffered.

I haven’t laughed so much watching a film for quite some time. The film is littered with so many movie references including having a Lee Majors in a cameo. Majors was the original Colt Servers in the long running ABC series of The Fall Guy that ran from 1981 to 1986.

Gosling oozes charm as usual and it took 10 minutes before he took his shirt off. His character is also able to show his softer side and unashamedly cries while listening to a Taylor Swift song. Blunt’s character, however, is strong-willed and able to fend it off the charm offensive.

Love songs sung in karaoke are juxtaposed with so much violence as most of inner Sydney is wrecked, that there just may not be a heavy-ever-after ending. But, with unicorns popping up everywhere, the film is sure to veer off into an appreciation of fall guys and those who fall for them.

Lezly Herbert