Before The Fall Guy even premiered at the SXSW film festival on Tuesday, there were boos in the audience – not for the film or stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, all staggeringly delightful, but for a preview of the festival’s tech conference, touting the promise of AI as a “great equalizer” that makes us “more human”. (Lol.) How funny, and unintentionally pointed, for such a statement to air before a film that serves as a joyful testament to the people who make movies, and particularly the tricky, bombastic art of human stunts. Even funnier that The Fall Guy, written by Drew Pearce and directed by Bullet Train’s David Leitch, itself takes some swings at AI in the script; it’s not really a spoiler to say that its deepfakes aren’t being used for good.
The Fall Guy, based on the 80s TV series, is an utterly charming, unpretentious rebuttal to the encroachment of digital effects in life and film (all due respect to VFX artists). It’s a celebration of blockbuster movies and their illusions of grandeur made by dozens and dozens of people working in concert, mostly below the line, and specifically the underappreciated work of stunt doubles. It’s also just a consistently good time, two hours of zingers with impeccable timing, two bona fide movie stars with palpable chemistry, several enjoyably meta send-ups of the business and, of course, plenty of crazy stunts.
