The Fall Guy Trailer Knows A Funny Ryan Gosling Is The Best Ryan Gosling
The Kenergy never dies: Ryan Gosling is back for another sexy, funny, ridiculous role, this time in stuntman and "Deadpool 2" director David Leitch's latest action-packed adventure. "The Fall Guy" sees Gosling himself playing a stunt performer named Colt opposite Emily Blunt's movie director Jody, and while the movie seems to be built around the potential rekindling of the pair's romance, it's also got lots of action — and angry bad guys chasing down Gosling's protagonist while he hunts down a missing film star.
The first trailer for "The Fall Guy" is a welcome reminder that Gosling is at his best when he lets a little bit (or a lot!) of wry humor creep into his more straight-faced roles. In the three-plus minute preview, Colt doesn't exactly come across as a Ken-level himbo, but the "Barbie" actor is in irreverent mode, telling a dog to engage its core, showing up in a club in a banana-yellow suit, and face-planting more than a few times. If we can't get a sequel to "The Nice Guys," the least we can get is a movie that sees Gosling in full comedic action hero mode again, right?
Goslings comedic streak continues
Gosling took a four-year break from acting from 2018 to 2022, but as he gets back into the swing of things this year, he seems to be on a roll. Although his first return to the screen, Netflix's action comedy "The Gray Man," had a mixed reception at best (in our review, /Film called it "aggressively mediocre," though Hoai Tran-Bui wrote that Gosling's magnetism still shone through), the movie set the stage for an era of Gosling saying yes to unexpected projects. That game attitude made him one of the best parts of Greta Gerwig's big-screen "Barbie" adaptation earlier this year, as his faux-macho, easily wounded Ken delivered perfect airheaded sound bites for every occasion.
"The Fall Guy" will be the third major post-hiatus project for Gosling, and the first trailer makes a great case for Gosling as a winking, self-aware action-comedy hero. The fact that Colt's ability to enchant women seems directly related to his knack for falling on his face or letting people set him on fire feels a bit meta with Gosling in the role, given that no matter how silly or sinister a role the actor takes on, he still ends up labeled as a heartthrob. "The Fall Guy" also follows a trend of recent movies in which women creatives envision adventurous male characters who then come into their lives for real — think "The Lost City" or the upcoming Matthew Vaughn film "Argylle." These movies don't always strike the perfect balance between romance, comedy, and action, but if they need a secret weapon to make them work, it could well be Gosling.
In addition to Gosling and Blunt, "The Fall Guy" stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke, and Hannah Waddingham. That's a whole lot of talent for one movie. The film is set to hit theaters on March 1, 2024.