If someone were to boil moviemaking down to a science and compile a list of all things that a good, crowd-pleasing film should have—action, romance, suspense, humor, Ryan Gosling—then the results of that mad Frankenstein experiment might look a lot like director David Leitch’s The Fall Guy (a loose adaptation of the ‘80s TV show of the same name). And so we must ask the question on everyone’s minds: Could this be, simply, the best movie?
The Fall Guy | Official Trailer
This trailer seems to at least suggest that it’s a possibility, because while the trailer itself isn’t perfect, even the shocking overuse of “You Give Love A Bad Name” can’t stop The Fall Guy from looking like a whole lot of fun. It centers on Gosling as a movie stunt performer (much like Leitch himself used to be, so he knows his way around this kind of thing) who has a flirty/antagonistic relationship with a big director (played by Emily Blunt). When her movie’s star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) goes missing, she asks Gosling’s character to help track him down, setting him up for all sorts of opportunities to use his stunt training in real-life dangerous situations—and giving them both all sorts of opportunities to fall in love! It’s Drive meets Barbie meets Romancing The Stone meets… maybe Jungle Cruise? Or a better example than that?
Gosling is in full dopey-charm mode here, and Blunt is in full begrudging-charmed mode, plus Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke, and Hannah Waddingham will show up as well. We like all of them, right? And, if you’re a skeptic, you intend to argue that a film with this cast does not have a chance to be the best movie? Plus, “You Give Love A Bad Name” isn’t the worst song ever.
We’ll know if our theory is true when The Fall Guy opens in theaters on March 1.
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