Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke

Director: David Leitch

Since the inception of movies (especially of the action genre), audiences have showered praises on hardcore action films, which have given them an adrenaline rush with mind-boggling action stunts and breathtaking sequences. And the reason behind that are the unsung heroes – the stunt doubles, who take risks of their lives to give us that experience. Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt starrer The Fall Guy is a tribute to all those stuntmen.

The movie starts with Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) stunt double of action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) talking about the greatness of stuntmen while walking on the set after a stunt. While the stunt seems perfect, Tom tells Colt to go for another take as he feels in the given shot, the audience will identify that the person, who has performed the stunt is Colt because of his jawline.

While Colt gets ready for another take, he faces an accident while performing it and gets off the radar from the entertainment industry and works as a valet at a family place. 18 months later, he gets a call from Tom’s producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham), who tells him to come back to the place and do what he loves. While his response is always negative, she reveals that Jody (Emily Blunt) once a steady cam operator, who had an affair with Colt, is making her directorial debut with a biggie titled Metalstorm featuring Tom and wants him for doing stunts.

Colt agrees to come on the set and while we see his rekindling of love with Jody with cute and funny banters, the reason to call him is tricky and vicious. Gail tells Colt that Tom has been missing for quite a few days and he needs to find him out. When he enters the actor’s room, he finds another stunt double of Tom dead in the bathtub.

He panics and while trying to inform everything about the incident to Gail, we see some goons attacking him and later becoming one of the prime suspects of the murder. Well, so many questions in your mind, right? And the answer to all these you will find on the big screen while watching
The Fall Guy
, which is a fun roller-coaster with delightful action sequences.

Director David Leitch has made a film, which has its heart at the right place and makes sure to give us ample whistle-worthy moments through its entertaining screenplay, which has filmy references, AI as well as Deepfake technology.

Talking about the performances, Ryan Gosling is a one-man show and rules the screen with his enigmatic charisma. Emily is amazing as Jodi and her chemistry with Ryan is superb. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Hannah Waddingham as Tom and Gail are simply perfect. Winston Duke steals the show with his bang-on comic timing.

On the whole, The Fall Guy is a delightful action comedy, which reminds you of massy Bollywood films from the 90s minus the technology.

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

The Fall Guy will release on 3rd May

About The Fall Guy

The hero of The Fall Guy is a stuntman, Colt Seavers, played by Ryan Gosling. The action romance is a madcap adventure that kicks off summer blockbuster season and reminds you one of the reasons you got to the movies – to see stuff get blown up. Director David Leitch‘s film highlights the nameless men and women behind your favourite action scenes. Using Gosling and Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt as the amiable leads, The Fall Guy is a delightful love story with wonderful beats of comedy.

The Fall Guy: Plot

Inspired by the 1980s American TV series, The Fall Guy is a behind-the-scenes romance between camera operator-turned director Jody (Blunt) and Colt (Gosling), stunt double to one of the top stars in Hollywood. After a stunt goes horribly wrong, Colt disappears to lick his wounds. But he is summoned back to work on Jody’s directorial debut, Metalstorm, a sci-fi cosmic love story, where the exes have an awkward reunion. But Colt finds himself involved in much more dangerous plot as a situation threatens to derail Jody’s first film as director. With the film and his career on the line, Colt does what he knows best, he gets into action mode.

The Fall Guy: Writing and Direction

Drew Pearce’s screenplay is warm, heartfelt and makes you laugh out loud more than once, even though the main plot gets a bit silly at times. This is clearly a film made by those who love the movies and what it represents. There are several inside jokes about filmmaking and the movie business that manage to translate over.

Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train filmmaker Leitch, who himself was a stunt professional before, seems to be having a blast dropping his characters in outlandish situations. The action sequences that Colt finds himself in repeatedly are situations in which he has been preparing himself all his career. The title of the film has a nice nod to the predicament Colt finds himself in for the second half of the movie.

The Fall Guy: Performances

Over the last few years, there’s been a lot writeups about how there are no more movie stars anymore. With The Fall Guy, I’d like to present exhibits A and B. Both A-listers Gosling and Blunt are coming off two massive hits from 2023 with Barbie and Oppenheimer respectively. In this film, they combine their star power for fantastic chemistry as reunited exes. Whether they are bantering about listening to Taylor Swift or arguing about motivation in scene, their chemistry is always entertaining. A charismatic and self-deprecating Gosling especially nails the comedic portions.

Gosling and Blunt are backed by a great supporting cast, with Hannah Waddington as the harried film producer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the spoilt movie star Tom Ryder and Winston Duke as Metalstorm stunt’s coordinator. There’s also a scene-stealing cute dog named Jean Claude who only responds to commands in French.

The Fall Guy: Critique

The Screen Actors Guild is one of the few mainstream awards organisations that honours stunt performers. The Oscars recently announced that they would be adding a new category for casting from 2025. The Fall Guy makes a great argument as to why stunt professionals should be next on that list. From acting, comedy, romance to meta quips about the movie business, The Fall Guy checks all the boxes for a good time at the movies this summer.

End of Article

A compelling romantic film, bathed in nostalgia, that will please immensely the fans of this genre.

A real viral travelogue blog by Jimmy Lai is the inspiration behind “18×2 Beyond Youthful Days”, a Japan-Taiwan co-production, directed and co-written by Michihito Fujii of “The Journalist” fame.

18×2 Beyond Youthful Days is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

36-year-old Jimmy (Hsu Kuang-han) is back at home in Tainan, after leaving it 18 years prior. He is going through a difficult and delicate stage of his life, having been excluded by the successful game developing company he founded and developed. It is certainly time for a break and a reassessment of life priorities and Jimmy starts from his ancestral home, where it all started. Rummaging into his bits and pieces in his teenager bedroom, he finds a postcard from an old crush, a Japanese traveler called Ami he had met the summer before starting University. Remembering how she liked travelling and how important it was for her; Jimmy decides to use this moment between jobs/decisions to explore Japan and maybe head towards Ami’s hometown in the North of the country.

From this point on, the film alternates flashbacks from that summer of 18 years ago and the slow trip that Jimmy is making by train across North Japan. Radiant backpacker Ami (Kiyohara Kami) had showed up one summer day at the karaoke parlor where Jimmy was working his summer job, waiting to know the results of the university admission exams. She had lost her wallet and just needed to work for a short while in order to save enough money to carry on her journey. It had been love at first sight for clumsy and shy Jimmy and Amy had always been friendly with him but somehow distant. Memories of that bright summer until the moment they had parted, and Amy had left Taiwan, resurface while today-Jimmy travels and meets some friendly strangers on his way; It was a summer that had shaped heavily his life choices and his future.

Michihito Fujii attempts an interesting experiment with an unusual mix of romantic teen drama, coming-of-age, travelogue, past and present, set in Taiwan and Japan, alternating both languages. The episodic structure of the film utilizes a series of flashbacks that gradually reveal the past events, some generated by conversations that Jimmy has with his occasional travel companions in his soul-searching itinerary that unfold at the same time. The two lines will eventually collide during the final act. It is an ambitious project as the fragmented nature of the narrative in these kind of flashback-rich films is often confusing and tedious too at times. However, in “18×2”, the pieces of the jigsaw fall in place rather effectively, completing nicely an elliptic arch of narrative.

The two 18-year-apart lines of narrative are kept well separated until the last act, by a series of stylistic choices. First of all, an almost opposite palette of colors, a bright, yellowish light imbues young Jimmy’s memories, giving it a luminous feeling of youth and cheerfulness. On the contrary, adult Jimmy is set against a muted gray/blue snowy landscape, a sobriety that reflects his moment in life. Camerawork follows this stylistic line too with a net distinction between a dynamic past and a more static present. Moreover, the acting complements these technicalities, with a virtuoso performance from Hsu Kuang-han, acting restless, messy and fidgety as a clumsy teenager and beautifully restrained as a 36-year-old man.

However, despite the clever storytelling, the film suffers a bit of a lack of “pizazz” in a plot the eventually feels slightly predictable and doesn’t add much to the plethora of similar stories. A good job at overcoming this lack is carried on by the good protagonists’ chemistry and the amiable characters that populate Jimmy’s youth, Ami, of course, and the whole gang of his co-workers at the Karaoke joint, run by a charming boss.

All in all, “18×2 Beyond Youthful Days” is a compelling romantic film, bathed in nostalgia, that will please immensely the fans of this genre.