The Fall Guy (2024)

"That Happily-Ever-After Stuff? Unsubscribed!"

or

"What's the Message of My Films?" "Nihilism is a Valid World-view?"

 

Watching Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt's prickly banter when they were presenting at the Oscars this past year made one actually think that their upcoming movie The Fall Guy might be somewhat entertaining. Bear in mind that I'm one of those crusty souls with no heart and no sense of humor (and no taste, apparently) who is not a fan of director David Leitch. Or of producer David Leitch. I stopped watching the "John Wick" series after the first one, which I did not enjoy and I suffered through it wondering if it was, in fact, meant to be a comedy. I mean...c'mon...the stunts were only believable if you weren't considering what would logically be the collateral damage outside the frame. And Wick goes off because someone kills his dog. Really? That would be funny...if it wasn't so damned dumb. I mean, they made fun of it in Deadpool. You know, the good Deadpool...the first one...the one David Leitch didn't direct. I figure you have to have a screw loose to really get off on these films. That they're successful and have spawned their own series of films only further makes me hang my head and despair about the future of the medium.

In this, a loosely-based spin-off of "The Fall Guy" TV show from the 1980's, Gosling plays Colt Seavers (played on TV by Lee Majors*). At the beginning of the film, he's a successful stunt-man, doubling for star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a big box-office draw, and he is having a heating-up relationship with camera op Jody Moreno (Blunt) until he's called to repeat a stunt—a wire-drop inside a high-rise edifice—that goes wrong and he's put in the hospital with a busted back. He emerges 18 months later parking cars at an L.A. Mexican restaurant and swearing off his stunt-man career. 

 

Besides, his phone isn't ringing, the one sure sign that nobody wants you in L.A..

Until, one day, the producer of those Tom Ryder movies, Gail Meyer, (Hannah Waddingham) calls to implore him that his services are once again needed—apparently Ryder has disappeared, whereabouts unknown (something Colt could care less about), but the signing bonus is the movie is being directed by first-time director Jody Moreno—former camera op, former flame. Colt gets on a plane to Australia where the film is shooting.

Told by Meyer that old flame Jody requested him specifically, Colt is sucker-punched when he finds out a) Jody didn't ask for him and b) she's surprised to see at all and c) she's pissed at how they broke up by not breaking up—Colt didn't return phone calls, didn't reach out, didn't do any of those things that men don't like to do, especially when they're fragile, physically and mentally. She proves her affection for him by having him repeatedly set on fire** and trip-wired to be slammed into a rock. Over and over again. Colt's way of responding to all of this is with his laconic "thumbs up" after surviving each take. Jody hates that. But, she still makes him do all that stunt work with a broken back. ("Get...on...a...plane, Colt!")

Um...you can see the crew in the sunglasses..."Props!"

So, immediately I began to question why Colt doesn't just leave as he was obviously there under false pretenses, and, if not the first thing, the second thing I would do after finding that out would be to verify if I was getting paid. Because, obviously, somebody in the front office is lying to him and if they're lying to him about that, there are probably all sorts of things they can't be trusted on. But, by this time, I had given up on the movie being any good and just hoping that it would eke out some entertainment.

It is, on occasion, because Gosling and Blunt are pro's and they can squeeze out entertainment no matter how necrotic the script is.

But, that's not how movies work these days. Entertaining as that may be, what the movie audience apparently wants, and the movie is determined to give them, is wall-to-wall practical action sequences. Things go boom, guys do gymnastic falls and fights, big puffs of smoke and dirt go up in the air for no real apparent reason, sparks fly. A lot. There are spectacular falls where Gosling pops up into the frame as if he did the stunt. Standard Operating Procedure. The movie is a professed love-letter to stunting people and, sure, I'm all for that. I'd rather see practical effects than CGI animation any day. Employ the hell out of 'stunt-people. But, pay them a living wage and make sure they have insurance, first. I mean, stunting is NOT a lost art. The only difference is it's being done in front of green-screens now.

It just doesn't look all that impressive when it's shown being filmed. Leitch doesn't exactly pull off the stunt that the story-stunts are more dangerous than the in-the-movie stunts (and they're still trying to make us believe the guy who cracked his spine a year and a half ago can do these things).

Two things did strike my mind while I was watching the thing scroll in one cortex and out the other: Movies save SO...MUCH...MONEY making a movie about making movies! You don't have to have sets, just people milling around with cameras and eating craft services, and walkie-talkies and cell-phones. You don't have to hide anything, or make believe it's real, and you can even shoot the dressing-trailers. It's so cost-effective as to be ridiculous.

The Fall Guy doesn't have a plot, so much as a thin thread to string between stunt sequences, like some of the really bad Roger Moore James Bond movies or the Mission: Impossible series...or like the Wick films. That seems so ass-backwards a way of making movies—well, of making movies that mean anything, anyway. For someone who sees movies as an art form, and its own unique form of communication, it's really a drag to see a movie like this.

 

The best you can say is: "Well, people were employed..."

Humor example: Blunt and Gosling are talking back and forth about story-approach, 

when she suddenly asks "What about split-screen?"

And before you can say "Oh, they're not..." (which I did),

they go split-screen. 

Laugh? (I didn't)

 

I never watched the TV version of "The Fall Guy"; this is as far as I ever got....

 

* Does Lee have a cameo? Yes, along with Heather Thomas in the post-credit scene (if you haven't walked out by then!)

**  Because she's an "old flame" "carrying a torch"? ...am I looking for sub-text that isn't there? Yeah, pretty sure I am!

 

 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Third World War

or

"A Colonialist in Chains...Now I Have Seen Everything"

 

When last we left (and, I'm sure, regretfully) Wakanda, they were ending their fearful (if understandable) isolation and establishing an outreach program into the wider world, no longer hiding in plain sight, sharing their culture, their knowledge, but not their wonder-mineral vibranium. The world is not ready for that (although they continue to try to possess "by any means necessary").

 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever begins with the acknowledgment that its MVP, Chadwick Boseman, who has played "The Black Panther" in all the previous Marvel movies, is dead. Much tribute is made, deservedly, but the most important thing the movie does right off the bat is to say that the actor (and the character) are irreplaceable, too irreplaceable to even try. In a movie industry where actors are replaced with the drop of a salary demand or a controversial tweet (and a genre that is still trying to come to grips with multiple actors playing a single character), this is refreshingly noble. And rare. Already, the movie re-establishes that air the original had of being a labor of love rather than a labor of commerce. 

King T'Challa, the former Black Panther, protector of Wakanda, has died of an unspecified disease. The country mourns the loss, but none more than T'Challa's sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright), princess and technological whiz-kid, who only knows that for all her brilliance and skills, she could not save her beloved brother. Now the kingdom is ruled by Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) with no protector, no Black Panther, but the more-than-capable army of the Dora Milaje, led by General Okoye (Danai Gurira). She's going to need them. At a United Nations meeting, she is pressed by the U.S. (Hey, Richard Schiff's in the Marvel Universe!) and France to share Wakanda's resource of vibranium, which she steadfastly refuses.

She gives them something else, instead. A big lesson in "Don't Mess With Me." The entrance opens and Okoye and her troop bring in some French soldiers who had tried (unsuccessfully, of course) to steal some vibranium. Ramonda lays down the law. Nobody is going to get the stuff for its potential for weaponry. If anybody tries it...well, they better not. Wakanda's memory is also forever.

They're not alone in that. The U.S. is trying to get their own vibranium deposited deep in the Atlantic Ocean, with a new device that detects the stuff. But, before any extraction can be done, there's an attack on the ship where the crew inexplicably jump like lemmings into the sea, impelled by a strange sonic attack of an unknown origin, and a helicopter attempting to escape is grabbed and thrown to a catastrophic end into the sea. Was it Wakanda? How? Even Wakanda doesn't know.

The answer comes from the sea. While Ramonda and Shuri are holding a private ritual ending their mourning by burning their ceremonial white robes, they are approached by a human rising from the water with wings on his feels and fire in his eyes. He is K'uk'ulkan or Prince Namor (Tenoch Huerta) of the undersea kingdom of Talokan and he loves what they've done with the place (the water is so clean! And the air is so fresh!), but not so much in his neck of the ocean, so he warns them. His people have stopped another attempt to take vibranium—this time from the ocean floor with a device that is specifically designed to detect it. As it is Wakanda's responsibility to police the mining of the stuff, they'd better get a handle on it, especially in his territory of the sea. If they can't, he'll see to it personally and with less restraint. His first aim is to find the person who created that vibranium detector and if Wakanda doesn't hand them over to him, he's not willing to wait and he'll take action against the people responsible and Wakanda, as well.

Okoye and Shuri contact their "favorite colonialist" Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), who knows who made that vibranium detector. She is MIT student Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who apparently has the "McGyver"-like ability to make a flux capacitor out of scraps taken from your recycle bin. Not only did she make that detector, but she's working on her own "Iron Man" suit because...well, MIT must have a liberal extracurricular activity program. But lousy security. When the two Wakandans contact Riri, they must first get by a raid by the FBI and then the Talokans, who take Shuri and Riri captive.

Queen Ramonda is furious with this. She demotes Okoye of her rank and then sends for Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o), former Dora Milaje and War Dog spy to infiltrate Talokan and rescue the two scientific geniuses who can't seem to rescue themselves.

Well, it just gets more complicated from there. Ultimately it turns into a war between third world countries, tribe against tribe, while both should be looking at the real threat, which is the supposedly industrialized nations (although they pale when compared to Wakanda) trying to get their empirical mitts on the resource the two warring factions share. It seems to be a case of not keeping your eye on the vibranium ball, but that's what happens when things get personal. You lose the big picture when you're the target of the attack.

But, as frustrating as that is—and aren't all wars fundamentally frustrating?—one must acknowledge the complications. Coogler displayed in the first Black Panther a penchant for world-building that went beyond decor and here, he does the same sort of thing for the Talokans (in a way that seemed to escape the DC Aquaman movie), creating a murkier version with more natural materials, and enough back-story to create the grudges necessary to sell the thing.

But, more than that, this movie is a bit of a miracle in that, even if it isn't as artistically successful as the first Black Panther movie, it is successful enough without its lynch-pin title character present (and its charismatic lead actor irretrievably absent) and, instead, depends on the superb supporting cast that enriched its predecessor. Imagine a Batman movie without Batman. Nope. Not gonna happen. But, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is engaging even without a Black Panther character for the majority of its running time (consider that a SPOILER alert). I can't imagine another film franchise that would be able to pull that off and get away with it, let alone excel in its own way. 

As these super-hero movies start to merge together and become indistinguishable from one another, that is a remarkable accomplishment.

Wakanda forever!

 

 Prince Namor ("The Sub-mariner") has been around since 1939

 

Us

You, Me, Us...and Especially "Them"
or
Defending Yourself Against Your Evil Twin

Jeremiah 11:11--Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.’

"It's not about 'race,' is it?" asked the friend who knew I'd seen Us. "Could be," I said. "But, probably not," I repeated. And then I started to laugh. 

And that's about the best response I can give to that question. All of it. Even the laugh.

Because if you're saying it's just about race relations in America, you're giving short-shrift to Jordan Peele, its writer/producer/director, for Us is a different experience than his first film, the crowd-pleasing Get Out; its reach is far greater, is not so "on the nose" as his previous film, and may leave a great deal of the audience wondering what in the heck he is doing with this one and, as a result, may find it frustrating, obtuse, and stretching credulity more than a bit.

I had the same experience. For instance, after its enigmatic opening (set in 1986) that starts with a teasing set-up with text, a couple of commercials from the era broadcast on television, and a visit by young Adelaide Thomas (at this point, she's played by Madison Curry), to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk with her dysfunctional parents and a totally ignored candy apple and an unsupervised visit to a hall of mirrors (where something shocking happens), we get the Main Title sequence that starts on a caged white rabbit* and slowly, ever so slowly, moves out to show more white rabbits...and just when you start thinking "where are brown bunnies?" well, there's a brown bunny. And I started thinking "Am I trying to make this about race?" Yes, I probably was. So, I turned off my critic-mind, looking for "meaning" and watched the movie.

Which is scary.

Adelaide Thomas is now Adelaide Wilson (and played by Lupita Nyong'o) and she and her family—husband Gabe (Winston Duke), daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and odd little brother Jason (Evan Alex), who always wears a monster mask, are on their way to visit the old Thomas family home in Santa Cruz. That Santa Cruz, where she had the unfortunate incident on the Boardwalk that gave her PTSD and that she has risen above. It's a normal family, Dad is relaxed and the butt of family jokes and rolling eyes, but he's amiable.

Adelaide is tentative about the trip, but not tentative about being with her family. Her experience at the Boardwalk has left a lifelong impression and she's anxious about it. Gabe couldn't be more excited, They're going to meet up with their friends, the upwardly mobile Tylers (Tim Heidecker and Elizabeth Moss) and their twin daughters, and he has plans to buy himself a boat—which Adelaide and the kids think is just nuts, but he's excited at the prospect of his new toy..

The Wilsons' trip to the Boardwalk, despite Adelaide's misgivings comes off with only one hitch—Jason goes missing on the beach. He just went to the Port-a-Potty for a moment. But when everyone realizes he's missing, Adelaide flies into a panic, finally finding him, standing transfixed at a homeless man on the beach, hands outstretched, holding a pair of scissors, blood dripping from his fingertips. This is enough for the shaken Adelaide to stop from going over to the Tyler's place après-beach.

Better to spend a quiet evening at home. Man plans. God...well, God has nothing to do with it (if you read your bible*).

That night, everybody's settling down about 11:11 pm, when four figures appear at the top of their driveway, blocking it. Gabe goes out to investigate, first being all-reasonable, but there's no response from up the drive. So, he escalates, going out with a baseball and a threat ("Y'all wanna get crazy? We gonna get crazy!").

It's at that point, that the group starts to move, splintering off in different directions and Gabe, wisely, sprints back inside the house. But, that doesn't prevent the strongest of the four from breaking the lock on the door and injuring Gabe's leg with the very bat he was using to defend himself.

The four figures enter the house and confront the Wilson's; they're malignant versions of each of them, dressed in red jumpsuits, communicating in animal grunts and holding a pair of ornate golden scissors. The Wilson's are scared, but incredulous at their malevolent twins. Adelaide asks her counter-part "Who are you?" Her wide-eyed doppelganger answers with the film's most chilling line: "We...are...Americans."

They are "The Tethered," duplicates who have been created, who live underground (in tunnels, access-ways, mines, and other "purposeless" channels—as mentioned in the opening text). The Tethered live parallel lives with their above-ground counterparts, but opposite to them in conditions; where they've lived above-ground in the sunlight, eating hot food, The Tethered have never seen the Sun, consuming cold food (them rabbits), cold and raw. While the Sun-dwellers live in luxury, The Tethered live in misery. The Tethered have no souls, and as the actions of the ones above affect their fates, they have decided to come to the surface and...sever ties.

Each of the family-members is pursued, dragged, paired off with their counter-parts to do them in, but each of the family-members get the better of their twins and eventually find out that they're not an isolated case—the whole country is under attack from this soulless army and the Wilson's make a plan to head to Mexico to avoid the destruction.

But...it's a horror movie, kids, and nothing is ever that easy in a horror movie.

Peele has set up a conceit that probably requires too much explanation and back-story, but it's a fascinating little metaphor for the struggles of class and of people confronting their worst selves and doing battle with—or being over come by—"it." It's a perfect little metaphor, but it's just a tough little conceit to swallow when it has so many unanswered questions of the "who, what, where, why" variety. But, especially "why." Why do this? Why create such a class of people and to what ends? The questions go unresolved because—really, does it matter? Do we really care why The Birds go crazy in Hitchcock's film? It's sure to be a let-down, not living up to the thrills depicted on-screen. The situation is what it is for the surface-dwellers and any delay or questioning of it is a momentum-killer and might cause anyone in the film to get scissored in the neck. You just keep fighting, Wilsons. We'll hold all questions until your're done.

Except, of course, for the final twist at the end which will change everything you think about the movie.

Except for one certainty: Lupita Nyong'o is one hell of an actress. After her startling performance (and Oscar win) for 12 Years a Slave, she has been sadly under-utilized, playing Black Panther's girl-friend (ferchrissakes) and (worse!) a motion-captured wizened alien in the new Star Wars Trilogy. Us, however, has her in full-force, playing two roles: one, the brave warrior, the momma-tiger, and the other, the evil step-sister who's the theatrical villain of the piece. Not only is she playing against type, she's playing it against herself—and neither role is given short-shrift. Jesus, I hope people remember this performance come awards time—the whole movie should be marked "Submitted For Your Approval."

It's the corner-stone of a clever little piece of cautionary fable about how the scariest thing you might find is in the mirror, and conquering it.

Or...do you?

Nyong'o a Nyong'o: "We have met the enemy and they is us."

*

10:1 Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.

7 Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.

8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.

10 But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.

11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.

12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.

13 When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

15 They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

16 The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The Lord of hosts is his name.

17 Gather up thy wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the fortress.

18 For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find it so.

19 Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous; but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.

20 My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

21 For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.

22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.

23 O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

24 O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.

25 Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.

11:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying,

2 Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;

3 And say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel; Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant,

4 Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:

5 That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O Lord.

6 Then the Lord said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.

7 For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.

8 Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do: but they did them not.

9 And the Lord said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

10 They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

11 Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.

12 Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

13 For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.

14 Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.

15 What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.

16 The Lord called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.

17 For the Lord of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke me to anger in offering incense unto Baal.

18 And the Lord hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then thou shewedst me their doings.

19 But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

20 But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

21 Therefore thus saith the Lord of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand:

22 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine:


23 And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

* Peele has said in interviews that he also thinks rabbits are scary. Cute, sure. Ciddly, okay. But, they creep him out. And that sense of instinctual unease, and his ability to use it, is one of his unique gifts as a film-maker.