The Fall Guy was a throw-away TV series that filled the schedules in the 80s, with Lee Majors as a stuntman who moonlighted as a bounty hunter. It followed the same vein as The A-Team when you could turn your television on a Saturday evening and watch without thinking. Now we get the feature reboot with two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Unfortunately, what should have been a blockbuster blast is a muddled mix of comedy, action and romance that just doesn’t seem to gel, even though there are moments when it does work.

Colt Seavers is a former stuntman who threw away his job, and the love of his life after an accident left him with a broken back. Living in hiding, he is invited back into the movie world by producer Gail Meyer, who tells him that Jody Moreno, the woman he loved, is making a film and has asked him to be the lead stuntman. However, when he arrives on set, things aren’t quite what he believes, as he is asked to find the film’s lead, who has disappeared, as well as trying to rekindle the relationship he left behind.

David Leitch, a former stunt person who directed action movies such as Atomic Blonde, Hobbs and Shaw, and Deadpool 2, should know how to play out what he has said is a tribute to the movie industry’s unsung heroes. Yet he struggles to balance the action with an overblown romance that seems to interrupt what should have been an explosive tale with real stuntmen doing real stunts. This is a film that begs for big explosions (which we get), big car chases (which we also get) and a breathtaking finale (which we get…sort of).

The trouble is that an awkward love story between Colt and Jody is stuck in the middle of this story of a former stuntman returning to the business he loves and trying to track down the missing leading male. Perfectly fine if this is a romantic comedy, but this advertises itself as an action flick based on an action-packed TV series. It seems to take forever to really get going, and then once we are settled in with the hunt, it keeps getting interrupted, annoyingly, by more gushy scenes between the two leads as they flirt. The proof of this is an all-action set piece in which Colt battles the bad guys through the streets of Australia on the back of a skip truck. A really inventive and exciting sequence of fighting and smashing up the streets is interrupted by Jody singing Against All Odds in a karaoke bar! All tension is removed with the pointless interruptions.

The romance just slows everything down. It would be perfectly fine if the dialogue worked, but it repeats itself as Colt tries his best to win Jody back. These scenes drag the 2-hour plus running time when it could have been a swift 90-minute action-packed comedy adventure, possibly like Burt Reynold’s Hooper, which seems to do more for tributing the stunt teams than this does.

You can understand Leitch’s decision to focus on the love story when he has Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in the lead. And yes, they have a tremendous amount of screen chemistry and obviously like each other, but they are given such a dire script that you are begging them to kiss and get it over with so we can return to the action.

Gosling, as Colt, is back to his self-deprecating best. He uses the best of his character in The Nice Guys, which allowed him to show off his comic prowess with this role. Colt is a confident stuntman who doesn’t know real life and stumbles around until he finds the truth. You could see him stepping into the kind of film Burt Reynolds made at the height of his career. A reboot of Smokey and the Bandit, maybe? He is charismatic enough to carry this single-handedly. Emily Blunt is also a skilled actress, yet she is given nothing to do with this role except play it coy. Yes, he can play comedy better than most, but the script doesn’t allow her room to shine.

In support, the always watchable Hannah Waddington does the best with the role of producer Gail, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson is fine as the star, Tom Ryder. Like Blunt, he is given little to play with. However, his Matthew McConaughey Cowboy is a hoot. Even Winston Duke, as the stunt coordinator, and Stephanie Hsu, who received an Oscar nomination for Everything Everywhere All At Once, are given one big scene.

The Fall Guy should have been a big popcorn movie to kick-start the Summer season. Instead, it’s a film that cannot settle on a tone that works and ultimately leaves you slightly disappointed. I’m sure it will be a hit, and a sequel will possibly follow. Next time, forget the romance and concentrate on saluting the stunt people.

3 out of 5

Director: David Leitch

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddington, Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, Teresa Palmer, Ben Knight, Matuse

Written by: Drew Pearce and (based on the television series created) Glen A. Larson

Running Time: 126 mins

Cert: 12A

Release Date: 2nd May 2024