The Fall Guy is director David Leitch’s love letter to all the unsung stunt performers over the years. A former stuntman himself, Leitch has directed Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train and was an uncredited director on the first John Wick film. Now, with the help of the star power of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, Leitch is looking for a mainstream hit in this remake of the old Lee Majors show of the same name. So does this action rom-com, which happens to be on our most anticipated list, kick off the summer season? Let’s find out.

The Fall Guy opens with a quick montage of memorable stuntwork from such Universal films as Fast Five, The Bourne Ultimatum, Leitch’s aforementioned Atomic Blonde, and the criminally underappreciated film The Rundown. All this is set to narration from Gosling’s Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who often doubles for Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s A-lister Tom Ryder. The movie opens properly with Colt going from his trailer to the stunt shoot in a skyscraper with an entertaining oneer, setting up both the relationship with the film’s camera operator Jody (Blunt) and the lingo you may hear on set as Colt goes through his checks over the walkie-talkie. But a freak accident puts Colt out of the job and shatters whatever might have happened with Jody.

Flashforward 18 months and Colt is working as a valet barely making ends meet. Despite being out of the game, he changes his tune when he’s called back to set at the apparent request of Jody, who is now directing her feature debut. But all is not what it seems, as leading man Tom Ryder has gone missing and the studio will shut the movie down if the lead can’t be found in time. Fearing that a shutdown would destroy Jody’s career, Colt embarks on a quest to find Ryder while also trying to repair all the damage done to his relationship with Jody.

So what works well with The Fall Guy? The easy answer is Ryan Gosling as Colt. Gosling just oozes charm and charisma in everything he does and playing Colt is no exception. He straddles the line between dumpy and slick effortlessly and his comedic timing is on-point. The movie is an action-romance-adventure film and Gosling is the perfect avatar to elevate the romantic scenes as well as the action/intrigue with the Ryder subplot. Gosling has fantastic screen chemistry with Emily Blunt’s Jody, who is extremely resentful of Colt for vanishing after his accident but clearly still harbours some feelings for him despite crushing her emotionally. The movie also digs into this quite well, looking at the outward psyche of a stuntman versus their mental state and juxtaposing it with their relationship.

Being a former stuntman, Leitch makes sure the action scenes are well-shot and entertaining. Quite a bit of the film’s action scenes were shot in-camera and you can actually see the b-roll of the stuntwork playing during the film’s end credits, which feels like the ultimate payoff for the crew. You may be thinking that a fight scene in a spinning garbage bin was CGI, but then you get a peak behind the magic by seeing the b-roll footage, which underscores how much we may take stuntwork for granted, as it’s so easy to assume that those scenes are shot against a greenscreen or were made entirely with VFX.

Much like the end credits, the movie ends up feeling like both a love letter to the stunt community, as well as a plea of sorts to allow stunt performers to get some sort of recognition from mainstream award ceremonies, such as the Academy Awards. The Fall Guy emphasizes that stunt people are often looked over and underappreciated despite all the hard work they put into the movie, but makes sure we see them in the limelight in this feature. The film would go on to break the Guinness World Record for the most cannon rolls in a car, a record previously held by Casino Royale. In many ways, it feels like the anti-blockbuster thanks to its practical effects and commitment to balancing action and romance while not being interested in setting up sequels or spinoffs. The Fall Guy also has fun with its banter, dropping in movie quotes and trivia between Colt and Winston Duke’s Dan Tucker, the stunt coordinator on the set while a clever split-screen conversation between Jody and Coly felt very meta but relative to the plot. Basically, if you really like movies, you’ll probably like The Fall Guy.

While the charm and humour works well with Gosling and Blunt, I did find that some of the humour outside of the rom-com angle fell a bit flat. And despite the emphasis on making grounded in-camera action, I did find the final action sequence did overstay its welcome while the script sometimes felt like it thought it was smarter than it was, a problem I also had with Bullet Train. But the film is elevated thanks to its leads, entertaining soundtrack, killer needle drops and a passion for the craft. Summer season has started and The Fall Guy is ushering it in. Thumbs up.