There are some positions in the film industry that are pivotal to entire genres, but yet very rarely receive the credit they deserve, both in terms of accolades and general recognition as being the lifeblood of the medium. Stunt performers have been an integral part of Hollywood since its inception, and with the exception of a few actors who made it a point to do their stunts, this is a relatively thankless job in which talented people put their safety on the line for the sake of their craft, an admirable endeavour that makes it very difficult to not empathize with these gifted individuals. As is the case with many unheralded positions, it takes someone who implicitly understands what these people endure daily for them to truly get the credit they deserve, which we have now seen in the form of The Fall Guy, in which David Leitch (who began his career as a stunt performer) crafts a very loose adaptation of the 1980s series of the same title, telling the story of a reclusive stunt performer who is tasked with locating the star of the film on which he is currently working, which is only complicated when he discovers that the film is being directed by an old flame, the tension between the two is palpable and the source of a lot of conflict between them as they work through their complex emotions, all the while trying to get the film completed. Without burying the lede, The Fall Guy is the kind of film that seems like it has a terrific premise, but ultimately falls apart almost immediately, in this instance through the lack of consistency in what it intended to say, and the fact that Leitch (who is not a bad director in the least, just not one we necessarily should entrust with more complex character studies, which this film ultimately should have leant more towards) struggled to do anything more than the bare minimum when it came to character development and forming a coherent and encapsulating plot proves exactly what this represented, and how it will essentially just exists for the sole purpose of being a relatively entertaining showcase for two actors, and very little else, one of the many small flaws that ultimate build up and coalesce into one of the year’s biggest disappointments.

Conceptually, The Fall Guy is not too controversial, since there is always value in telling stories that shine a light on professions that are rarely given much attention, particularly those within the film industry, where the majority of stories centring on cinema focusing on writers, actors or directors, rather than those that work in other departments. Making a film about stunt performers has a lot of potential, which is why we can easily give those behind this film some credit. It’s also worth noting that it is refreshing to see a major production that is not based on a franchise or a very recognizable property – the film is indeed based on a television show from the 1980s, but it wasn’t marketed as being a direct adaptation, and it’s likely the majority of viewers may not be aware of a series that has mostly faded into obscurity. Much like The Stunt Man, from which both the show and this film were loosely inspired, The Fall Guy is focused on showing how vital these performers are to the art of cinema – regardless of genre, there is often a need for people to perform these stunts, which has led to a profitable industry in which athleticism and flexibility (as well as fearlessness) became a valuable skill. Leitch has a lot of fondness for the industry in which he got his start, so there is very little we can do in terms of faulting the premise, or the desire to make such a film. Instead, it falls apart in other ways, which proves to be a problem for a film that had a lot of promise at the start, but which falls apart once we realize that it wasn’t willing to follow through in all the ways we would necessarily expect, and becomes quite a bland endeavour that is rarely ever all that effective or interesting, especially not when it comes to realizing the more promising ideas embedded right at the heart of the story, which goes entirely unnoticed for the most part, an unfortunate result of a film that could have been substantially improved with some effort.

As much as we find value in a film that offers a glimpse into the trials and tribulations of stunt performers, there is not much substance to The Fall Guy, which is built around a story in which we think we’ll be getting meaningful insights into the industry, an assumption that is proved to be almost entirely false when we realize the limitations that this film placed on itself, both tonally and narratively. The Fall Guy is a deeply generic film, an action comedy that hits every required criteria, and absolutely nothing else, leading it to feel like yet another conventional entry into a genre that is often criticized for being predictable and uninspiring. Leitch has proven himself to be capable of elevating the genre on a few occasions – he helped shepherd a new era of stylish action filmmaking with films like Atomic Blonde and his uncredited work helming John Wick, and while it was deeply flawed, Bullet Train proved to be a wickedly entertaining romp that represented the best the genre had to offer, and at its most cartoonish, which is always welcome. In this case, everything falls apart as a result of the weak script, which feels like it was written by throwing together all the most cliched and conventional ideas and hoping that a glossy sheen would help distract from the fact that nothing quite happens throughout this film, despite its lengthy running time and the constant need to reiterate the supposedly epic scope, a puerile marketing tactic that overestimated how much audiences would be willing to surrender to a relatively non-existent plot in which we are confronted with a couple of impressive action sequences that are tied together by the most hackneyed storytelling imaginable. Nothing much happens throughout this film, which is bizarre for a genre in which wall-to-wall action is a guarantee – based on pure action, The Fall Guy does deliver what it promises but doesn’t do much else, with the lacklustre storytelling actively nullifying the valuable entertainment that comes from these sequences, resulting in a squarely mediocre film without any real substance, or even the willingness to masquerade as anything more than a deeply derivative jumble of bland ideas.

At the very least, the promise of having Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt leading a film would lead us to give The Fall Guy a lot of credit – after all, they’re both fantastic actors and have shown themselves capable of working in several different genres, often at the same time, balancing tonal shifts very well. Unfortunately, they’re both wonderfully gifted and put in the effort, but they’re victims of mediocre writing, which constructs them as one-dimensional archetypes. Quite a lot of the attention the film has received has pointed towards the supposed chemistry between the two leads, and while they do act across from each other well (and genuinely feel like they’re getting along in riffing on the enemies-to-lovers archetype), the storytelling is simply too weak for it to be effective, and it ultimately begins to feel like they’re both wasting their time playing parts that don’t have much substance to them at all, becoming an overwrought jumble of concepts that simply never registers as anything more than overly conventional and a waste of their time. Neither of them needed to prove anything with The Fall Guy – the central genres that this film is trying to explore (action, romance and comedy) have all factored into their previous work, so there wasn’t anything in either of these two performances that could be considered surprising or much of a change of pace, and thus they never feel like they’re miscast in terms of the project itself, but rather their immense talents are wasted on such thinly-drawn characters that we are almost forcibly told to acknowledge as being the most charismatic and endearing of figures, even though neither actor is given all that much to do. The Fall Guy does feature a solid performance from Hannah Waddingham, who is a decent scene-stealer (and as one of our most charismatic working actors, absolutely deserves to be in as many films as she can), and who does factor into the final twist. Unfortunately, this is where the praise ends, especially since Aaron Taylor-Johnson is hopelessly dull as the film’s main villain, and nearly everyone else barely registers. Understandably, the film was built on Gosling and Blunt, but when neither is doing anything special or even notable, we begin to wonder if perhaps they were too well-cast, to the point where the film suffers because of how unsurprising and conventional it tends to at all times, and reliability is not an asset for such a film, especially not one that is supposedly designed to be subversive and satirical.

The Fall Guy is the very definition of a film where the promise of the premise is so massively divorced from the final product, that looking at the disparity between them is both depressing and bewildering. There isn’t much this film could have done to be more effective – the humour is stale, the chemistry between the two leads is not necessarily strong, and the story itself is as bland and unassuming as you would expect. Very little works in the film – the writing is predictable and never comes across as being particularly worthwhile (it surprising the screenplay was written by Drew Pearce, whose directorial debut Hotel Artemis is a fantastic genre film that proved that action cinema can be original and daring, something that this film seems to completely contradict through its perpetual dependency on the same tired tropes), the filmmaking is extravagant but unremarkable, being a clear case of style over substance – and even then, outside of the action sequences (which Leitch mastered), there’s nothing particularly memorable about the filmmaking, which does the bare minimum in terms of giving us something notable. Not even the chemistry between the two leads makes this film worthwhile – they’re both playing roles that are so closely aligned with previous work, that it seems like a waste to have gotten such gifted actors to take on parts that don’t challenge them or even give them a chance to do something different or unique. The Fall Guy is overlong, deeply dull and lacking in any real substance – the mystery at the heart of the film is half-baked and tedious, the humour is strained to the point where we are relieved in the sporadic moments where it becomes extremely serious, and the performances are middling at best. It’s not entirely atrocious, and there are some small merits scattered throughout, but for the most part, The Fall Guy is an overlong chore of a film, and doesn’t honour the community depicted well enough, nor does it do anything that will linger with the audience. It will likely fade into the endless well of similarly-themed action films that have very few discernible qualities that allow them to stand out, and will most probably be forgotten by the time the next painfully derivative action comedy arrives and fools us into thinking it’s original and daring.