The Fall Guy review: Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt's film is fun but chaotic

It's chaotic, fun and incoherent but Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt's impeccable comic timing, good looks, and performances make The Fall Guy watchable. Director David Leitch, who was a former stunt double to actors like Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme, pays an elaborate homage to the stuntmen and women of Hollywood in The Fall Guy. The result is a film full of high-octane stunts and action sequences that glorify the stuntmen but in a slightly outlandish story.

Gosling and Blunt- stars of last year's biggest films Barbie and Oppenheimer respectively- play Colt and Jody- former lovers who meet once again on the sets of a new movie. Colt hasreturned from retirement to be a stunt double of the leading man who has been his long associate in previous films. The catch is that the leading man, Tom Ryder is missing and the producer of the film Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), a long-time friend and ally, insists on Colt to find him in order to save the film which is his ex-girlfriend Jody's debut film as director.

Colt obviously has feelings for her, even though they had a nasty break-up, and so he goes in search of Tom Ryder but soon realises that a trap has been laid and he is now being chased by the police. Is Colt able to prove his innocence and does he finally get to rekindle his old love with Jody for the rest of the film.

Loosely based on an old TV show of the same name, The Fall Guy makes the stuntmen the hero. After all - most of the awe-inspiring action stunts in movies are done by these guys and so Leitch makes Colt larger than life. He may be nursing a life-altering back injury, but that never stops him from breaking into glass doors, jumping off cliffs, setting himself on fire. In the last monologue near the climax, he admits "it hurts" to do such dangerous stunts yet in the next moment, he readily gets into a rickety car for a risky stunt - so that Jody gets her 'Comic-con shot'.

The meta-esque story is chaotic to say the least. Not everything and everybody makes sense at all times. Yet it's the leads who make the ride worth it. Both Gosling and Blunt get the memo right. Gosling looks dishy and brawny and his comic timing - seen previously in films like Barbie and Crazy, Stupid Love - is perfect. The immensely talented Blunt matches him in every scene and it's a delight to watch their conversations. They bring in the laughs in plenty. They flirts, converse and fight in a Dune-meets-Alien-like movie set.