The Fall Guy

Story:

Based loosely on the 1980s television series, The Fall Guy is a 2024 American action comedy film written by Drew Pearce and directed by David Leitch. The plot centers on a stuntman (Ryan Gosling) who is working on an action movie directed by his ex-girlfriend (Emily Blunt) and becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving the movie’s star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, Teresa Palmer, and Hannah Waddingham are also on the cast.

Universal Pictures distributed The Fall Guy in the US on May 3 after it had its world premiere at SXSW on March 12, 2024. Although critics gave the movie mostly favorable reviews, it did poorly at the box office, earning $181 million worldwide on a production budget of $125–150 million and costing the studio about $50 million.

Hollywood stunt worker Colt Seavers, who works as action hero Tom Ryder’s stunt double, breaks his back in a botched performance and leaves his career and lover, camerawoman Jody Moreno.Gail Meyer, Tom’s film producer, contacts Colt, who is now working as a valet for a tiny Mexican restaurant, eighteen months later. She informs him that Jody wants Colt to work on the production in Sydney for her first picture, Metalstorm, a space opera film starring Tom. When Colt gets to the set, he finds out that Jody never asked for him and is still upset over their split; the movie is a less-than-subtle attempt to vent her frustrations on Colt.

Gail discloses that Tom vanished after running afoul of “very bad people,” and she wants Colt to track him down before his disappearance leads to the cancellation of the already extravagant movie. Colt concurs, not wanting to ruin Jody’s directorial debut. He initially visits Tom’s flat, where he meets Iggy, Tom’s co-star and lover. After receiving a lead from her, Colt goes to a nightclub where he encounters drug dealer Doone, who deceives him into consuming a hallucinogenic concoction. Colt finds a dead body in an ice-filled bathtub in Tom’s hotel room after a confrontation with Doone’s goons. The body is gone when Colt and the police arrive back.

Colt and Jody start getting back together as Metalstorm is being produced, but Gail tells him that he has to go back to the United States. Instead, he tracks down Alma Milan, his personal assistant, in an attempt to find Tom. Before Tom and Gail are attacked by Tom’s head of security, Dressler, and his squad, who are also seeking for the phone, she gives him Tom’s phone. After a protracted pursuit across Sydney with a garbage truck, Colt and Alma overcome them.

He unlocks the phone with his longtime friend Dan Tucker, Metalstorm’s stunt coordinator, and finds a video showing an inebriated Tom while dueling at a party, unintentionally killing his most recent stunt double, Henry Herrera (the man in the bathtub). After attacking Colt and Dan, the henchmen use shotgun pellets to smash the phone.

Dan manages to get away, but Colt is apprehended and taken to meet Tom, who has been hiding out on a yacht at Gail’s direction. He discloses that he planned Colt’s accident because he thought Colt was taking his place in the spotlight and that Gail is utilizing deepfake technology to replace Tom’s face on the incriminating video with Colt’s in order to frame Colt for the crime. While Gail tries to persuade Jody that Colt is guilty, Henry’s body is found and the manipulated film is made public. After a boat chase ends in an explosion, Colt escapes and is thought to be dead, but he lives and swims to safety.

Production resumes when Tom shows up at the Metalstorm set the following day. Returning covertly to the set, Colt persuades Jody of his innocence. As the rest of the stunt crew, under the direction of Dan, repel Tom’s bodyguards, they work together to fool Tom into taking part in a stunt sequence and confessing while he is connected to a lav mic. Gail tries to flee with Tom in a helicopter after stealing the recording at gunpoint, but Jody assists Colt in jumping on the helicopter in midair. As the helicopter crashes with Gail and Tom inside, he pulls out the tape and lands on a crash mat that Dan has set up.

At San Diego Comic-Con, Metalstorm’s trailer debuted, introducing Jason Momoa as the new star and Alma as the new producer. The movie goes on to become a box office success. Colt and Jody reconcile once he is cleared.

Gail and Tom survive the collision in a post-credits sequence, but they are taken into custody by the authorities. Tom unintentionally sets off a sequence of radio-controlled pyrotechnics and blows himself up when he leaves Gail to be arrested so he may phone his agent. Alma dials Momoa’s representative.