David Leitch’s action comedy The Fall Guy, with Barbie star Ryan Gosling and Oppenheimer star Emily Blunt, premiered at the SXSW this week. The first reviews hail it as “delightful,” “funny,” and “surprisingly romantic” among other things. The Vulture review lauded Ryan’s comic skills by stating, “Gosling, whose comedic talents were criminally undervalued until last year’s runaway hit Barbie, gets to flex them again here, bringing his deadpan, affably dim charm to the role of Colt Seavers, a hot-shot stunt double for megawatt movie star.”
The Variety review echoed the thought and claimed Ryan is very well-cast. “The Fall Guy is funny, it’s sexy, and it features the boy-toy version of Barbie scene-stealer Ryan Gosling — which is to say, this time around, he embodies the ultimate action figure,” it read.
The Vulture review said that the ‘genuine romance’ between Ryan and Emily’s characters is the most surprising thing about the film. It stated, “Blunt and Gosling have splendid chemistry – the kind of onscreen magnetism shared by people who are not just insanely hot but also simply know how to look at each other,” The Guardian review seemed to agree: “It’s all a fizzy, funny, convincingly romantic delight, a tribute to the craft of making big movies with big stunts that is heartfelt in its appreciation without taking itself too seriously.”
However, the Wrap review called The Fall Guy “dull,” in comparison to Dev Patel’s action flick Monkey Man, which premiered the same evening at SXSW. “Where that directorial debut from Dev Patel felt fresh and alive, this one plays as a stale attempt at an action-comedy that quickly runs out of steam,” it stated.
Based on Glen A. Larson’s 1980s television series of the same name, The Fall Guy stars Ryan as Colt Seavers, a stuntman on the hunt for a missing movie star he once doubled for. The film also stars Emily as Gosling’s ex-girlfriend Jody, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Supporting them in the film is Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Winston Duke (Black Panther), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso) and Teresa Palmer (A Discovery of Witches).