The Fall Guy is in theaters May 1st
Now that The Fall Guy is about to be released in theaters, all eyes are on Ryan Gosling, or at least on Emily Blunt. We tend to forget that the film is about cinema, yes, but about a part of cinema to which we tend to pay little attention, unless we have a passion for the topic. We are obviously talking about stunts, acrobatics, pirouettes, somersaults, very dangerous things in short: taken from the TV series Dangerous professionDavid Leitch’s film talks about all these things, albeit in its own way.
The same name as the director of The Fall Guy is indicative: Leitch, now arch-famous for John Wick, Blonde atomic and other films where he gets along well, he’s also a stuntman (or at least he was, we doubt he’ll do it again), a martial arts enthusiast and someone who understands the importance of getting people to do certain things Really on a set, not relying on wires, gimmicks or CGI. And so on the occasion of the film’s release we celebrate the art of the stunt with 10 films that will make you think “he didn’t really do it”, only to later discover that yes, he (or they) really did it. However, we are talking about a noble and ancient art: choosing just 10 to represent it is not easy, and you will surely tell us that something is missing (Ben Hur! The spy who loved me!). Have mercy: we did our best.
Cliffhanger
According to the Guinness Book of Records, stuntman Simon Crane’s flight from an airplane to the sky at an altitude of 4,600 meters is still the highest-paid aerial stunt ever: a million dollars, for a number that Sly wouldn’t have never agreed to do it, given that he suffers from vertigo.
Death Proof
A film whose protagonist is called “Stuntman Mike” cannot fail to have at least one absurd stunt: let’s choose Zoë Bell who is dragged onto the hood of a car at full speed, holding on only to two seat belts.
Jackass (you choose which one)
An entire format based on performing stunts that are not only spectacular and extremely dangerous, but also incredibly stupid and futile. It’s impossible to choose just one, but since we hate each other and you too, here it is:
Mad Max: Fury Road
As Steven Soderbergh said, “I don’t know how you make a movie like that and I don’t know how hundreds of people didn’t die during the filming.” If you want to get an idea, here’s half an hour of backstage:
Mission: Impossible (take your pick)
Tom Cruise has now made senseless stunts his life mission, and here too: how do you choose which is the most spectacular? The one where he broke his leg jumping from one building to another or the time he climbed a glass skyscraper? We choose this, from Fallout:
Ong-Bak – Born to fight
A film advertised as “there is no CGI and there are no cables” could not fail to end up in this ranking, which on the other hand could have been made up entirely of films with Tony Jaa. Because let’s be clear, let’s talk about this:
Police Story 3
Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh find themselves on a set and decide to compete to see who does the craziest stunts. It ends with the former hanging from a helicopter and the latter jumping off a train on a motorbike, and with the best ending credits ever:
Rollercar – Sixty seconds and go!
Not the remake with Nicolas Cage, but the original by HB Halicki. In essence, the entire film is a gigantic stunt: the final chase alone lasts 40 minutes (!), during which more than a hundred cars are destroyed (which were all owned by the director, who had bought them in balance at $200 each).
The Raid
The stunt we want to talk about has become sadly famous as an example of the risks that those who do this job run every day on set, especially in countries where safety measures are laxer. The fact is: a stuntman named Sahlianto Alfridus came this close to dying shooting this scene, which isn’t even the most spectacular scene in the film. So you look at it and think, yes, he really did it.
A quiet weekend of fear
We close with a couple of signature stunts: since the production wanted to kill this film, they started cutting out the stuntmen and forcing the actors to do their own stunts. The result is that when you see Jon Voight climbing a rock face, well, it’s really Jon Voight. And Burt Reynolds in the canoe? That’s right: he broke his tailbone filming that scene.
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