“This is the story of one of America’s great unsung heroes. I mean, you’ve seen him, but you never knew who he was. You’ve cheered for him and cried for him, and women have wanted to die for him. But did he ever get any credit, or the girl? No! He’s what we call the “Stuntman”, and the reason I’m talking so fondly about him is, well because it’s me, Colt Seavers. Anyway, picture work isn’t wall-to-wall employment, so maybe you wonder how a guy keeps his head together? Well, one way is to wait by the phone … and wait and wait. The other is to take an occasional job with the court system of the United States of America, where a man is considered innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, sometimes a lot of these people get out of jail on what we call bail and they’d run like hell! … and that’s where I come in. I sometimes pick up rent money trying to find them and bring them back to justice.” – Television series open.
Lee Majors performed a pretty solid television hat trick in his television career. Over three decades he starred in three iconic television shows that defined him for three successive generations. In the 1960’s he was Heath Barkley on the TV western The Big Valley. Like the Cartwrights in the more popular series Bonanza, the Barkleys faced all of the elements of the Wild West, and Lee Majors was there for it all. From 1965 to 1969 he was in 112 episodes of the hit show. Then the 1970’s arrived, which was the decade in which I became acquainted with Majors as Steve Austin, “a man barely alive” until a secret government organization made him “better than he was” as The Six Million Dollar Man. He was “reassembled with a bionic arm, eye, and two legs. It made him “stronger … faster …” I spent many a summer afternoon running in slow motion and making that “chichichi” sound as a young boy. The Six Million Dollar Man ran from 1974 to 1978 and went 99 episodes, a couple of spinoffs, and several television movies. The show has been kicked around in Hollywood for decades with several attempts to make it a film franchise, often updated to The Six Billion Dollar Man. I guess a million bucks just doesn’t go as far as it used to. Now it takes $126 million to put Majors’ third series on the big screen. That happens to be the role of Hollywood stuntman-turned-action-hero Colt Seavers, and it ran from 1981 to 1986 and another 112 episodes. If you’re keeping score at ,that’s an amazing 323 + episodes of television over three decades. And now it’s Colt who beats Steve and Heath to the big screen in The Fall Guy, directed by David Leitch and starring Ryan Gosling in Majors’ Colt Seaver role and Emily Blunt as his co-star, playing Jody Moreno, originally played by Heather Thomas. But is this a movie that audiences are going to fall for?
Colt Seavers is one of those nameless stuntmen in Hollywood, and for years he’s sacrificed a few cuts bruises and even broken bones to make action movie hero Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson) look good on film. He keeps his spirits up by flirting with DP mainstay Jody Moreno. He keeps trying to get closer to her, and it’s looking good until a stunt goes badly … really badly. Colt ends up in a hospital and feeling sorry for himself. So he kind of disappears and ends up as a parking valet and miserable. Things might all change for the better when Tom Ryder’s producer Gail Meyer (Waddingham) cold-calls him and asks him to come back to work on a huge science fiction potential blockbuster staring … you guessed it …Tom Ryder. The bait on the end of the hook is that the new film is being directed by Jody. It’s her first big break, and she personally wants him on the picture. He packs away the pride and jumps on a plane for Australia only to find that not everything is the way he was told.
Jody didn’t know anything about him working on the film, and it was all a ruse from Gail to get Colt to find Ryder, who has apparently gone MIA. If he can’t find him in two days, Jody fails and never gets to direct again. The mystery plunges him into a world of drugs, murder, and betrayal. Before he knows what’s going ,he’s been framed for murder and is on the run from the cops and the bad guys. Can he clear his name, get the girl, and stay alive all at the same time? That’s what this popcorn action film is all about.
I never really saw much of the television series, but I can tell you that Easter eggs abound, and fans will get enough of them to stir up that old nostalgia the film’s premise relies so heavily upon. For me, I got to see the film for what else it is. It’s kind of a love letter to the stuntmen in the industry. With a budget much higher than a 1980’s television show, the film is back-to-back stunts with plenty of tongues firmly planted in cheek. I mean, these action scenes are over the top and filled with more corn than your refillable souvenir bucket. One of the best and most outrageous involves Colt trying to stop the bad guys who are kidnapping a girl with a garbage truck. The truck falls to pieces as the action barrels down the streets of Sydney, leaving sparks and carnage in its wake. The film often spoofs its source material and offers more than the expected meta moments. It’s a romp that never really slows down, so make sure you take a deep breath and buckle those theater seats nice and tight and keep your hands and feet inside the seating area at all times. Someone’s going to lose an arm or a leg in there.
The real star of the film isn’t really Ryan Gosling or Emily Blunt. It’s the wonderful chemistry that the two share right from the start. It feels like they truly own these parts, and their play off each other is the real heart of the film. Look, I’m not that into the whole romance film vibe, but this one is too much fun to ignore and easily worth the ticket price alone. It’s also filled with plenty of laughs. Yeah, the film often strays too far into the camp feel, and sometimes over the top is way too far over the top but you’ll find yourself easily forgiving those moments, because the film really doesn’t give you any time to dwell on them. The supporting cast is also very good, and there are honestly no weak links in this ensemble. Also look for the Steve Austin moment, or should I say listen for the Steve Austin moment.
Both Majors and Thomas have cameos at the end of the film, so you’ll need to sit through the credits on this one. Majors looks pretty good for a an 85-year-old. The film’s only flaw is the tendency to go too far. “You can lose an audience if you give them too much.”
