The Fall Guy review – Ryan Gosling fails to fly in vacuous stuntman action comedy

Like the Lee Majors-starring 80s TV show on which this bombastic action comedy is based, The Fall Guy is pitched as a celebration of the work of the stunt crew: the unheralded men and women who take the movie-set risks so that the stars can take the credit. But in fact the film tumbles into the same pitfalls as any other enthusiastically pyrotechnic, action-heavy extravaganza: the sheer volume of stunt sequences means that the skills on show start to lose all meaning. Individually, the shots of a tiny figure dangling from a bucking, spinning, malfunctioning helicopter are impressive. But the relentless pace at which director (and former stuntman) David Leitch (Bullet Train) works through his ostentatious action set piece checklist means that it all turns into empty noise; spectacles strung together by a dizzy, slapdash screenplay that feels as though it has sustained a few too many bumps to the head.