The Fall Guy (2024)

While I found enough in The Fall Guy to enjoy, and the metatextual layering should be especially delightful for fans of cinema and stunt work, it's easy to see why it didn't exactly set the box office alight. I was depressed by the amount of people reviewing this who felt the need to mention that they were unaware of the original TV show, a favourite in my household when I was a young boy, but failing to have enough "brand recognition" is really the least of this movie's problems. 

Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a talented stunt performer who ends up leaving the business for some time to recuperate after one stunt went horribly wrong, seriously injuring him. He hides away from everyone, including the woman he was growing close to (Judy Moreno, played by Emily Blunt). Hollywood calls him back, however, when producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) tells him that Judy wants his help in her feature directorial debut. He could also help her by locating her AWOL leading man (Tom Ryder, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

Directed by David Leitch, and written by Drew Pearce, this is a film that feels as if it has been crafted around three or four major set-pieces. There’s an impressive opening, a decent car stunt that shows our lead character fully back into the stunt life, a few enjoyable fight sequences, and a finale that almost works as a classic stunt checklist. It works well as a star vehicle that also serves to celebrate the stunt performers who are responsible for some of the great cinema spectacles.

Sadly, it doesn’t work well as an action romantic comedy, mainly because it doesn’t allow enough time for Gosling and Blunt to be onscreen together, but also because it is too cutesy in a way that I thought was a bit smug and irritating (prime example = a scene in which the leads are on the phone discussing the pros and cons of split-screen sequences . . . displayed via a split-screen sequence). It is also annoying to have the title be made so literal in at least two different ways, which makes a couple of the plot points more predictable and tiresome than they might otherwise have been.

Gosling is great in the lead role, but he is at his best when his character is quickly reacting to a dangerous situation whirling around him. He really shines in the second half, which is coincidentally when the action and daring nature of the stunts really appear to ramp up, but his presence is a boost for the whole film. Blunt, on the other hand, doesn’t fare so well. I like her as a performer, but she lacks whatever quality is needed to make her the best choice here. Maybe she’s just made to play things too cool. It’s a shame. Taylor-Johnson is fun, and hilarious when delivering his “film within the film” performance in a great Matthew McConaughey style, Waddingham does fine with a character who steers everything in a very obvious direction, and Winston Duke does well as a stunt co-ordinator and good friend to our reluctant hero. There are also small roles for Teresa Palmer and Stephanie Hsu, both completely wasted, and I am not sure why their characters were even kept in the film.

The pacing is helped by the building momentum, there’s a great soundtrack and score that is boosted by repeated riffs from “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”, and fans of stunt-work should love seeing how the staples of that discipline are constantly reworked and refreshed throughout this. It just doesn’t quite make one completely satisfying bit of blockbuster entertainment, despite being enjoyable enough. I would definitely rewatch it though, and a rewatch might get me to like it even more, especially when I consider how the small treats at the very end of the film kept me smiling as the long list of credits rolled.

6/10

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Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

Anyone who knows my view on the Fast & Furious franchise should predict that I was optimistic, yet also very cautious, about this spin-off. The car-based core series has often entertained me, they peaked with the mix of action and ridiculousness in the sixth and seventh instalments, and then eight just went too far over into the kind of silliness that kept taking me out of the movie. This film, pairing up Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham for their own action-packed adventure, looked enjoyably silly from the first trailer I saw.

And it is. Which was a huge relief for me. This film makes it obvious from the very beginning that the central characters are almost superhuman and your brain shouldn't spend too much time calculating the odds of all of their plans and stunts being physically possible.

Written by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce, the story concerns a deadly virus, a cybernetically-enhanced supervillain (Brixton, played by Idris Elba), and a young woman named Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) who has already tried to defeat Brixton, but finds herself defeated. Fortunately, Hattie is the sister of Shaw (Statham), which is why he is asked to help, along with the one person he really doesn't want to be paired up with, Hobbs (Johnson). This isn't a one-man job though, and working together may be the key to any chance of success, which would also basically save the world.

Directed by David Leitch (who previously did such good work on Deadpool 2), this is big dumb fun that runs for just over two and a quarter hours (do any major action movies nowadays manage to come in at a brisk 90 minutes?) and manages to entertain from start to finish, thanks to the comedic tone of the script, the charisma of everybody with a major role, and the pacing. The set-pieces are enjoyable loony, with as many challenges as possible thrown at our heroes while they generally outrun, out-think and out-fight everyone around them.

If you enjoyed the interplay between Johnson and Statham in Fast & Furious 8 (which, let's be honest, was at its best when they were onscreen) then I don't see any way that you wouldn't enjoy this. They remain amusingly antagonistic towards one another, and competitive when it comes to who can despatch the most disposable henchmen, and both men get an equal amount of time to show off. Elba is a fantastic villain, and he appears to be having a lot of fun in the role, and Kirby is as good as, if not better than, anyone else onscreen, with a tough attitude and a badass skillset ensuring that she can hold her own in any of the major action sequences (including a scene in which she believably takes on Johnson). Helen Mirren reprises her role, as the mother of the Shaws, and entertains once again in her one main scene, and Eddie Marsan is good value in a small supporting role, a Russian Professor who may be able to help ensure the virus can't harm others.

Plenty of punches are thrown, you get a few moments of vehicular mayhem, there are a couple of fun cameos (which I won't spoil here), and those who are patient enough to sit through the end credits will be rewarded with numerous little extra scenes, which are also a lot of fun. I doubt anybody is going to spend too much dissecting this, or searching for hidden meanings or metaphors, because it's absolutely not that kind of film. But I am pretty certain that it will please most action movie fans, and be on regular rotation when it comes to the home media market later in the year. I know I'll be getting it, and am already looking forward to a rewatch.

8/10

Hotel Artemis (2018)

We've had a lot of great action movies in recent years, and a number of them have taken the time to at least hint at an unseen criminal world running parallel to our own. Hotel Artemis is another film along those lines. It's a blend of sci-fi, action, and standard thriller stuff. It's not great though. Unfortunately, it struggles to even be good.

Jodie Foster plays The Nurse, the woman in charge of the titular building. It's a safe haven for criminals, an exclusive medical facility that has some hard rules in place for the safety of everyone who comes and goes. If you're not up to date with your subscription payments then you can't get in. You can't bring in weapons. And you don't hassle the staff (Foster and her right hand man, Dave Bautista). Of course, these rules all start to be broken on a night when one man (Sterling K. Brown, in a lead role that feels very much like a supporting one) turns up, wounded brother in tow, after a botched robbery. There's a riot in the city causing problems, a couple of other residents (Sofia Boutella and Charlie Day) not getting along too well, a wounded cop (Jenny Slate) in need of assistance, and a surprise visit from the wounded owner of the establishment (Jeff Goldblum).

Hotel Artemis is so close to being a good film that it's almost frustrating to consider how much it misses the mark. The cast are all very good, and very good in their roles (even Charlie Day, who I like in comedic work but sometimes seems miscast when in more serious roles), the hints at the unrest going on in society are intriguing, but never developed into anything more worthwhile, and the few scenes that show the more badass characters actually being badass are fun (although Bautista is sorely underused, and when will Sofia Boutella be given the action movie lead role that she deserves?).

Writer-director Drew Pearce spends far too much time showing that this is his first feature, and that most of his written work used him best as part of a team of creative minds working towards the same goal. There's a damaging lack of focus, an unearned confidence in the dialogue scenes (Foster and Goldblum may be enjoyable to just listen to as they speak but they still need to be given more than the cheesy and clichéd dialogue that they're given here), and a general inability to give any of the main players material that is worthy of their talents. I also had an issue with the way we were given the rules of the hotel, only for them to be broken with far too little time or pressure applied to the decisions.

Take a bunch of lesser-known names and this movie becomes a straight-to-disc time waster. With this cast, however, there's really no way it can be viewed as anything other than a disappointment. The only person who comes close to being used well is Boutella, and even that feels too little too late, in an action sequence during the third act that puts her front and centre.

5/10

You can buy the disc here.
Americans can buy it here.