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After taking too long to get to its point while trying too hard to be interesting by being overly quirky, “The Fall Guy” mostly gels into something worth watching for the final act. This film was advertised as an action-comedy with a mystery and a love story. In reality, it’s mostly a rom-com about a stuntman, with some action and occasionally bits of a mystery. There’s a lot of stylistic choices, some of them self-aware, that take away any seriousness to what’s going on in the film. The leads are good in their roles, but often feel more like caricatures than real people. They tend to lean into a certain silliness, but it’s overdone to the point that the comedy tends to fall flat. There are a few cool action sequences, but because the movie is focused on a stuntman making a movie, you may find yourself feeling bad giving the actor that’s playing a stuntman credit for stuff that a real stuntman did. It’s only in the third act that all the elements finally come together, and the move becomes what I expected it to be. (Even though the plot gets overly convoluted.) There is a nice montage through the credits that does highlight the stunt work on the film, and then there’s a brief mid-credits scene that pays some homage to the original “The Fall Guy” television series.
** out of *****