The Fall Guy Parent Guide

After meeting on a film set, stunt performer Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) and camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) flirt and maybe fall a little in love. Before they have a chance to find out where this little fling could go, Colt is seriously injured in a big fall, ending his role in the film and, he thinks, his career.

As he moves on from his old life, Colt changes his phone number and picks up work as a valet for a local club – until he gets a call from producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham). She tells him that Jody is working on her first film as a director, and wants Colt to double for the film’s big star, Tom Ryder. But when Colt shows up on set, Jody is shocked and more than a little annoyed with him for ghosting her and showing up uninvited. He is still the most qualified stuntman on set, though, so she decides to give him another chance.

The bigger issue, which Jody still doesn’t know about, is that Tom Ryder has gone missing. Gail’s real motivation for recruiting Colt is to track down the star and save the movie. While Colt is used to doing things that are big and dangerous, this job is riskier than his usual work. And while he couldn’t care less about Ryder, Colt is desperate to fix things with Jody and saving her directorial debut seems like a good way to do it…if he can stay alive.

The Fall Guy is a 100% purebred summer action flick, and it has blockbuster written all over it. The stunts are big and fun, there’s a cute little romance plot with plenty of chemistry, and, from time to time, the script manages to be funny. You can’t ask for much more than that, can you? There aren’t really any deeper issues for me to dig into and analyze here – that would be like trying to examine the nutritional content of spray-can whipped cream. Sure, there’s probably something interesting in there, but it’s completely irrelevant to your enjoyment of the product. Just spray it straight into your mouth and ignore all your troubles.

Of course, much like eating whipped cream out of the can, The Fall Guy isn’t going to be something you want your kids enjoying without supervision. It’s not like they’re going to get lost in some elaborate or complex plot, but this PG-13 film is violent and there’s a good deal of cussing – two f-bombs on top of several dozen other profanities. Older audiences, though, will almost certainly have a good time with the movie’s nearly constant high-stakes, high-speed silliness.