'The Fall Guy' review: Ryan Gosling shines, movie around him explodes

In the movies the stuntman is supposed to be invisible, the guy behind the guy whose job it is to go undetected and make everyone else look their best. So in "The Fall Guy," a hyper-referential tribute to stunt dudes and the business of making movies, the best meta-narrative is that Ryan Gosling, who plays a veteran stuntman named Colt Seavers, is the only one keeping things from falling apart.

This is Gosling in mega Movie Star mode, the pure charmer he's always been but sometimes works to suppress. He was stoic in "Blade Runner 2049" and emotionally vacant in "First Man," and no one remembers enough about "The Gray Man" for it to count one way or another.

But his role as Ken in "Barbie" reawakened his movie star within, and The Baby Goose has been on a roll ever since — that Oscars performance, "SNL" — and it's hard to resist the charm offensive he mounts in "The Fall Guy."

The movie's lucky to have him, and he sells it on his affability and swagger. But beware when characters in a movie as self-reflexive as this one begin talking about problems with the third act, because they're definitely talking about the movie itself. What's bizarre is that these problems are acknowledged yet go unaddressed, and "The Fall Guy's" final act is so convoluted that not even Gosling can keep it on the rails. When "The Fall Guy" falls, it falls hard.

As the movie opens, Colt is the cool guy stunt double for cocky movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a prima donna who loves to brag he does all his own stunts even though it's Colt who does all the heavy lifting. It's fine, it comes with the job. Colt has a hot and heavy (but also a surprisingly sweet and healthy) relationship with camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), and they're able to make movies together and fool around in between takes, and everything's just dandy.

That's until Colt is injured during a stunt gone bad and pulls himself out of the game for 18 months, retreating inward as he heals his back and his ego. He takes a job as a car valet while Jody gets her dream gig as director of her first movie, a schlocky sci-fi action romance dubbed "Metal Storm" that's shooting in Australia.

Colt gets called to the set by barking mad producer Gail Meyer ("Ted Lasso's" Hannah Waddingham in a cartoonish performance) to pull off some big stunts that only he can manage, while his Plan B is to win back Jody's affections after icing her out of his life.

So far so good, and there's a great scene where Colt and Jody work through their issues while on set, surrounded by costumed crew, as Jody repeatedly sends Colt flying into a rock. Then "The Fall Guy" starts getting away from itself, as Colt is sent to track down a missing Tom Ryder, who is embroiled in a murder plot involving another stuntman, and Colt is framed for the murder.

Things only get more tangled from there — there's incriminating evidence on a phone, copious "Miami Vice" references, a dog who only responds to French commands, a fussy movie star assistant played by Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu, and a score that keeps riffing on Kiss' "I Was Made for Lovin' You" — as "The Fall Guy" drifts further from the Colt and Jody storyline. And the movie seems to know it's reeling and decides to make a joke out of it, rather than screenwriter Drew Pearce ("Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw") just writing a tighter script and losing the extraneous plot mess.

Up-and-down director David Leitch — "Atomic Blonde" was electrifying, "Bullet Train" was a soul suck — is a former stuntman himself, and he uses the canvas of the 1980s TV series to bring stunts and stuntmen back to the forefront. (There are several references to the lack of Oscars given to stunt work, a movement that has been gaining steam online in recent years.)

In Gosling he finds his "Fall Guy," and the actor's chemistry with Blunt is topped only by his heatseeking chemistry with the camera itself. He's a star and the movie hangs on his shoulders, and like a good stuntman, he makes everyone around him better. Maybe the ultimate joke of "The Fall Guy" is that Gosling is left standing while the movie blows up around him, but there's only so much he can do to cushion the project's fall.

agraham@detroitnews.com

'The Fall Guy'

GRADE: C+

Rated PG-13: for action and violence, drug content and some strong language

Running time: 125 minutes

In theaters