David Leitch’s The Fall Guy had its premiere at SXSW and the reviews so far are… surprising.
The reaction is almost uniformly positive and many talk about film as containing unexpected fun and thrills.
According to the ever-reliable Dark Horizons, reporting on the reactions from Rotten Tomatoes, The Fall Guy is currently sitting at 94%.
Ryan Gosling leads, fresh off Barbie, and plays a stuntman making his return after an almost career-ending accident. He get embroiled in a p,or involving a missing movie star and a conspiracy.
Not only that, but he has to win back the love of his life while still being the unknown stuntman who made all those stars look so good.
Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson co-star.
Here is what they say:
“This is popcorn filmmaking at its most cheerful and enthusiastic, driven by cheeky needle drops, rousing action, and movie stars.”
Katie Rife, IndieWire
“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.”
Adrian Horton, The Guardian
“The Fall Guy is funny, it’s sexy, and it features the boy-toy version of ‘Barbie’ scene-stealer Ryan Gosling – which is to say, this time around, he embodies the ultimate action figure.”
Peter Debruge, Variety
“For all its big set pieces (and there are, to be clear, many of those), this is an unexpectedly gentle picture, unafraid to put its star-crossed leads in a car at night for a quiet, intimate conversation.”
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
“A blast of fun at the movies worthy of the biggest tub of popcorn you can find. It’s two hours of movie stars being absolute charm machines, and sometimes that’s all you really need.”
Matthew Jackson, AV Club
“As it stands, ‘The Fall Guy’ is a wonderful movie about love and collaboration mashed up with an aggressively fine summer thriller.”
Matthew Monagle, The Playlist
Not everyone is raving about it though. There was at least one guy there who didn’t like it:
“Very loosely based on the 1980s series, the film plays out over the course of nearly two hours without any fun, getting buried under empty gag after empty gag as it feels more like we ourselves are experiencing repeated head trauma.”
Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap
The Fall Guy opens on May 3rd.
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