In 'The Fall Guy', Ryan Gosling Fakes Heroism

Turning an ’80s TV series into a movie might be the epitome of Millennial mindlessness. In that sense, The Fall Guy is a perfectly idiotic product. Based on the television series that retooled The Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors as a show-business stunt coordinator who also solved crimes, this facetious film adaptation stars Ryan Gosling, not quite a replacement for towering tough-guy Majors. As the titular Hollywood stuntman, Gosling is as bland as always. Every Gosling performance — whether the Plasticine eunuch Ken in Barbie or the junkie schoolteacher in Half Nelson, a psychotic getaway man in Drive or a jazz pianist in La La Land — seems unreal, a kind of stunt. Gosling may not be a CIA psyop like Taylor Swift, but he has a similar vapid persona, and his ubiquitous presence in the culture (he won’t go away) makes him equally dismaying.