On April 25, 2024, the bright comedy action film “The Fall Guy” will be released in Ukrainian theaters, starring recent Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Read the UNIAN review about the new film from the professional stuntman and director of the films “Deadpool 2” and “Bullet Train” David Leitch.
About the director
Over the past decade, David Leitch has become one of the most exciting directors working in the action genre. And this is not surprising, because who else but he knows everything about staging stunning fights, explosions and races.
Since childhood, Leitch was fond of martial arts, and despite receiving a higher education in International Relations, immediately after college he decided to open a sports school and start teaching there. At the same time, in 1995, 20-year-old Leitch made his film debut as a stuntman in the TV series Sherman Oaks.
Subsequently, his stunt career developed at a frantic pace – he acted as both a personal understudy and a stunt coordinator in general. Since then, he has worked on the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, the “Matrix” franchise, the films “Blade”, “Fight Club”, “Ocean’s Eleven”, “Daredevil”, “SWAT: Special Forces of the City of Angels”, “Troy” “, “Van Helsing”, “Xxx 2: The Next Level”, “Constantine: Lord of Darkness”, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, “300”, “The Bourne Ultimatum”, “X-Men: Wolverine”, “The Mechanic” “and many other iconic action films. He doubled for Brad Pitt five times and replaced Jean-Claude Van Damme twice.
In general, Leitch and his stunt company 87Eleven, which he founded in 1997 with colleague Chadam Stahelski (and stunt double Keanu Reeves), have had a hand in most of Hollywood’s biggest action films over the past almost 30 years and have long developed their own recognizable style.
Over time, they decided that being solely responsible for stunt work was not enough for them, and they moved into directing. In 2014, Stahelski made his debut as a director with the already cult action film John Wick, while Leitch acted as co-director in this film, responsible for staging the action scenes. The film became a real hit and opened both their paths in Hollywood as directors.
Leitch made his full-length independent directorial debut in 2017 with the spy thriller Atomic Blonde, starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy. A year later, he released another high-profile action project – the superhero comedy action film Deadpool 2. Both films received positive reviews and were financially successful at the box office.
A year later, Leitch directed the action movie “Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw” – and, in the humble opinion of the author of this review, it turned out to be much better than most of the films in the original “Fast and Furious” franchise, of which it is, in fact, a spin-off.
Leitch had to wait three years for his next film. In 2022, the action movie “Bullet Train” was released, in which the director invited the aforementioned Brad Pitt to play the main role.
And now David Leitch’s fifth solo directorial work has been released – the action-comedy “Stunt Man”, where he paid tribute to his colleagues in the shop, who usually do the most risky work, but go unnoticed – they don’t even give an Oscar for this, as stated The main character of the film is Colt Seavers.
What is the new film about?
The series is inspired by the popular 1980s action series of the same name, starring Lee Majors, about stuntman Colt Seavers, who worked as a bounty hunter in his spare time, using his physical fitness and stunt skills to catch criminals and fugitives. The very expression “fall guy” in English has one of the meanings of “scapegoat” – and, in fact, it is this expression that best characterizes the film.
When creating his film, Leitch used only the general concept of the series, but tried to create his own story. His Colt Seavers is one of the best stuntmen who regularly doubles for the pompous, moody and generally not very pleasant superstar Tom Ryder. However, he loves his job. Especially when the talented cameraman Jodi Moreno appears on the set. A spark ignites between them and a whirlwind romance begins, but everything goes awry when Colt is seriously injured while performing a difficult stunt. After this, he withdraws into himself for a year and a half – not only leaving his profession, but also breaking off his relationship with Jodie.
One day, Ryder’s producer Gale tricks Colt into filming a new space action movie, Metal Storm, which is Jodie’s directorial debut. However, the latter is still offended by her former lover and is not at all happy about cooperation. Things get even worse when it turns out that Ryder has disappeared – and Gale asks Colt to find him if he wants to save his beloved’s career. Well, then he plunges into a whirlpool of lies, intrigue and mortal danger, when not only his work, but also his life is at stake.
In the film, Leitch really pays a lot of attention to the stuntman’s craft, namely from the latter’s point of view, and during the credits the audience is shown footage of the stunt doubles who worked in the film. There is also a small scene after the credits, which is a kind of prequel to the ending of the film.
In general, there are a lot of references in the film – from quite obvious allusions to Dune to more subtle moments that only true action fans will appreciate.
Actors and characters
The film stars recent Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”) and Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer”) in the lead roles. And if Gosling presented his version of Colt Seavers, which has much in common with the serial prototype, then a new character was invented for Blunt. So, if in the series the main female character was Jodie Banks, also a stuntwoman, then in the film she was made a director, also changing her last name.
Producer Gail in the film was played by Ted Lasso star Hannah Weddingham, and superstar Tom Ryder was played by Hollywood handsome Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Avengers: Age of Ultron), who had already worked with Leitch in the film Bullet Train. It is he who the media call the main contender for the role of the next James Bond.
Winston Duke, best known for his roles in the films Black Panther and Us, played the role of stunt coordinator and friend of the main character Dan Tucker, and the star of the film Everywhere At Once Stephanie Hsu embodied the role of Ryder’s personal assistant Alma Milan.
The stars of the original series “Stuntman,” Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, also made small cameos in the post-credits scene.
Reaction to the film
The film had its world premiere at the SXSW American Film Festival on March 12, 2024, where it received mostly positive reviews from critics.
The film currently has a score of 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb, while it has a 90% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. At the same time, on Metacritic film experts rated it 77 out of 100 points, which corresponds to the characteristic of “generally positive reviews.”
By the way, the film’s team also entered the Guinness Book of Records for the number of barrel turns made in a car.
Our verdict
“Stuntman” is a brilliant spectacle, amazing with the number and skill of performing stunning stunts. It’s fast-paced and funny – just the thing for a good evening of movie watching if you’re into action. Yes, at times, especially at the beginning, it may seem that Litch is too immersed in romance, but this is rather deliberately presented too “vanilla”, following the example of the same “Deadpool”.
The film has a very cool cast, professional and attractive, and at least three names in the cast are definitely capable of luring viewers to the cinemas.
“Stuntman” also sheds a little more light on the work of people behind the scenes, who audiences usually don’t think much about while watching films.
Overall rating – 7.5 out of 10 points.
***
Read about other new films of the week in our separate review. You can also check out the selection of the most interesting TV series for April 2024.
Marina Grigorenko
