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‘Fall’ Review: Things Are Looking Down

In this nerve-shredding thriller, two young women fight to survive while stranded on top of a 2,000-foot TV tower.

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By Lena Wilson

If you, too, are afraid of heights, you’re likely to experience “Fall” as a straightforward horror movie instead of a thriller. The director Scott Mann has certainly packed this latest venture with enough jump scares and bloodshed to blur genre lines. As a result, “Fall” occasionally feels overrun with gimmicks and gotchas, but it also offers one hell of an adrenaline rush.

The film opens on a tragedy. Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and her husband, Dan (Mason Gooding), are scaling a cliff face with their friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner), when an accident sends Dan plummeting to his death. Just shy of a year later, Hunter drags Becky back into the climbing game by promising her an easy half-day jaunt up a 2,000-foot TV tower. The two have been estranged; Hunter spent the last year becoming an influencer while Becky binge drank and contemplated suicide. But when they end up stranded on a small platform at the top of the tower, reconciliation takes a back seat to survival.

“Fall” loses its grip in the final act, as tension gives way to ludicrous horrors. Still, its twists are so bizarre that they’re kind of fun, and the actors sell them hard .

Most of all, this is an impressive feat of cinema. The bulk of the film was shot on a 60-foot platform on top of a mountain, to keep things looking realistic. Of course, that only makes “Fall” all the more harrowing. As Becky and Hunter’s brushes with death compounded, I kept flattening myself into my seat like a literal scaredy cat. Be glad it’s not playing in IMAX.

Fall Rated PG-13 for Ahhhhh!!! Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters.

Lena Wilson is a project manager at The New York Times and a freelance writer covering film, TV, technology and lesbian culture. More about Lena Wilson

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Fall review – wildly effective survival thriller delivers seat-edge suspense

Two young women are trapped on top of a 2,000ft tower in an absolutely absurd yet undeniably effective nightmare

P re-release debates over the title of Jordan Peele’s patchy summer hit Nope were settled last month when the secretive writer-director revealed that no, it wasn’t an acronym for “not of planet earth” but was something far more simple. It was, as others had expected, a nod to what many audiences are accustomed to wearily shouting at the screen during a horror film. Investigate that unsettling sound coming from a barely lit basement in a remote house late at night? Nope! Accept a lift from a creepy stranger in a blood-spattered pick-up truck? Nope! Climb up an ancient and abandoned 2,000ft TV tower without support, food or alerting anyone else first? Nope!

With the release of ridiculous yet undeniably rattling new thriller Fall, it’ll be heard on a loop from cinemagoers across the US this weekend, said first with an eye-roll before being screamed through sweat-drenched fingers. Hinged on a setup so stupid that it takes some strength to make it through the first 15 minutes without checking out, the buzz-free August surprise manages to erase all early doubt with enough genuine seat-edge suspense to turn it into the most exciting and effectively agonising action movie of the summer. I found it hard not to quietly cheer while watching this tiny-budgeted underdog swoop in and climb its way to the top of the tower; Mavericks, Thors and Grey Men falling away with speed.

In a sub-Cliffhanger cold open, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) suffers a devastating loss when her husband Dan (Mason Gooding) falls to his death in a climbing accident leaving her and best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner) to pick up the pieces. A year later, Becky is drowning her sorrows when Hunter, now a successful YouTuber specialising in extreme stunts, calls, saving her from the brink. The estranged pair reunite when Hunter suggests she join her on an audacious climb to the top of a 2,000ft tower in the middle of the desert. Spurred on by a vague idea of confronting fear, she says yes. But when they reach the very top, disaster strikes, the ladder falls away and they’re left stranded.

It’s all head-shakingly ridiculous and while the script isn’t equipped to find a believable justification as to why someone trying to get over such horrific trauma would want to do something quite so deranged, none of that really matters once we’re halfway up (a point that we’re chillingly reminded is the height of the Eiffel Tower). While the dodgy green screen in the cold open had me worried, despite an astonishingly low $3m budget, British director Scott Mann manages to make the high-in-the-sky danger feel scarily, stomach-churningly real and if the pace allowed for it, it’d be tempting to Google just how on earth they managed it all while watching. Despite obvious VFX work (even Tom Cruise would turn down such a stunt), the joins are so hard to spot and the illusion so skillfully conjured that I found myself utterly, horribly immersed in the big dumb spectacle of it all. Spanish cinematographer MacGregor and an A-game visual effects team use the structure’s perspective to breath-taking, dizzyingly queasy effect and even find time for some rather stunning standalone images, briefly transforming a B-movie into something oddly artful.

Stupidity might have got the pair up to the top but their actions once situated are grounded and satisfyingly competent, Mann and co-writer Jonathan Frank finding an impressive amount of mileage from two people stuck on a small grate with a small bag. It’s a puzzle for them to solve and like the very best survival movies, it has us trying to solve it alongside, could that or would that or how about questions tidily fitting in-between the steady stream of nopes. There are two silly, derivative twists, the first incredibly easy to spot and the second incredibly easy to get annoyed with, but it’s mostly a pretty straightforward against-the-odds thriller, a throwback of sorts with some slight nu-tech tweaks (who knew a selfie stick could be such a vital emergency tool?). The tension of it all is heightened even moreso by two fully committed performances from little-known actors giving it their all, trying admirably hard to sell some laughably goofy dialogue during a physically gruelling vertical obstacle course (Gardner emerges as the real standout, possessing the effervescence of a young Reese Witherspoon).

Fall is the rare three-drinks-in “what if?” elevator pitch that somehow survived the journey to the big screen, made with unusual precision and punch. Director Mann sets his sights low even as his simple, sturdy film climbs so very, very high and in doing so, delivers in a way that so few have this year, a $3m embarrassment to the studios throwing a hundred times more at blockbusters with a hundred times less of a thrill factor. Arriving in the dog days of summer, it’s something of a marvel.

Fall is out in US cinemas on 12 August and in the UK on 2 September

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Review: Two women alone on a platform 2,000 feet in the air? ‘Fall’ somehow makes it work

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One of cinema’s great wonders is the way a few moving pictures on a flat screen — composed and choreographed just so — can make a viewer’s palms sweat and heart race. Just look at “Fall,” a survival thriller that at times feels like an extended experiment in audience-poking, testing how many times director Scott Mann can induce a state of mild panic by repeatedly showing the same image. That image? Two young women standing on a small metal platform, perched 2,000 feet above the ground, attached to a narrow tower with no ladder.

“Fall” stars Grace Caroline Currey as Becky, a skilled mountain climber still reeling a year after witnessing the accidental death of her husband during an ascent. Virginia Gardner plays her best friend, Hunter, a social media influencer and daredevil who tries to shake Becky out of her torpor by inviting her along as she shimmies up an abandoned communications tower in the desert. On the way up, the ladies do have a ladder — rusty and shaky. But while they’re triumphantly taking selfies at the top, the way back down collapses.

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Mann and his co-writer, Jonathan Frank, follow a lot of the formulas for these kinds of movies, for better and for worse. On the downside, they pad out their story with Becky’s personal trauma, making her unresolved feelings about her husband’s death a bigger part of the plot than they need to be.

On the upside, “Fall” does what the best survival movies do, by carefully enumerating the resources the heroes have at their disposal so that we can enjoy watching them figure out how to deploy these pieces wisely — or wince as they waste chances. At the moment when the ladder crashes, Becky and Hunter have no cell service, and the backpack with their water is stuck on a dish about 20 feet below them. But they do have a drone camera, a flare gun, two phones and climbing gear. How can they use what they have to get help, while avoiding the circling vultures and whipping winds?

A similar question could be asked of the filmmakers: Can they do enough with this tiny amount of material to fill a whole movie? Well … sort of. Mann and Frank throw in some unexpected twists and obstacles; but while this film is quite long, it still feels like it’s missing one or two more story beats, either early or late. The space occupied by Becky’s heartbreak could’ve been filled with something more viscerally gripping.

That said: Oh jeez, that tower is so tall, and that platform so small, and those women look like they’re barely hanging on. For the most part, “Fall” works because it plucks on the same raw nerve, over and over. How many times can Mann freak out the audience by cutting to a vertiginous shot of the unfolding crisis? Every time. Sometimes cinema is simple.

'Fall'

Rating: PG-13, for bloody images, intense peril and strong language Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes Playing: In general release Aug. 12

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‘Fall’ Review: A Don’t-Look-Down Thriller That Will Have You Clutching Your Seat

Two women climb an abandoned TV tower in the desert, and we're with them every shivery step.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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“ Fall ” is a very good “don’t look down” movie. It’s a fun, occasionally cheesy, but mostly ingeniously made thriller about two daredevil climbers, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), who decide to scale the B67 TV tower — an abandoned 2,000-foot communication tower that juts up in the middle of the California desert. It’s based on an actual structure (the KXTV/KOVR Tower outside Sacramento), which is used like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the skyscraper that became the pedestal for Tom Cruise’s you-are-there stunt sequences in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.” And if, like me, you loved that movie in part because of how deviously it toyed with your fear of heights, “Fall” is likely to hit you as an irresistible piece of vertigo porn. It’s for anyone who ate up “Ghost Protocol,” as well as the awesome rock-climbing documentaries “Free Solo” and “The Dawn Wall,” and wants to continue that shivery vicarious high.

Critics, for some reason, now like to mock the visual sleight-of-hand that goes into a thriller like this one, as if the CGI involved were all too easy to see through. But in this case I couldn’t disagree more. “Fall” was shot in the Imax format in the Mojave Desert, and there are moments when I honestly don’t know how the director, Scott Mann , the cinematographer, MacGregor, and the two actors did it. Were they actually on a tower — and, if so, how high up? Were there stunt people, or was every bit of this brought off with computer trickery?

The abandoned TV tower, like the KXTV/KOVR Tower, is, we’re told, the fourth highest structure in the U.S. It has a photogenic vermilion finish (imagine the Golden Gate Bridge as a rusty hypodermic needle), and it turns out to be the perfect setting for a movie about climbing into the sky. As the two women ascend, the desert below looks like something viewed from an airplane. The trick is that the elements of the image are all visually united: tower, horizon, climbers. Without a cut, the film will glide from close-ups to vertically angled drops to death-defying panoramas; the light and shadow are always just right. You know how it feels when you watch an old movie with rear projection that’s laughably fake? “Fall,” by contrast, represents a totally credible and innovative use of CGI. Watching the movie, we believe our eyes and, therefore, our raised pulses.

The two women have agreed to make this climb as a way to wrest Becky out of her funk. In the film’s opening sequence, we see the two ascending a vertical rock face along with Becky’s husband, Dan (Mason Gooding), who winds up plunging to his death. A year passes, and Becky can’t let go — of him, or of the anxiety that has calcified around the tragedy. Facing her fear, scaling that TV tower along with her best friend (they plan to scatter Dan’s ashes when they get to the top), is the only thing that will purge the demon.

As terrifyingly tall as the tower is, it doesn’t strike us as something that would offer that much of a challenge to highly experienced climbers. There’s a ladder on the inside of the caged needle that goes up for 1,800 feet. For the remaining 200 feet, the ladder is outside the structure. I wouldn’t want to climb 30 feet of it, but these two aren’t scared of heights, and the feat they’ve laid out for themselves looks a hell of a lot easier than shimmying over the smooth plunging rock faces they’re used to. That’s why they succeed pretty quickly. Half an hour into the movie, they’ve ascended to the small circular platform up top.

But along the way the whole structure has been quivering, with telltale shots of a nut or a bolt coming undone here and there. It’s the outside ladder that’s getting loose, and as they take the last steps, a chunk of it falls out from under them, the weight of that chunk pulling the rest of the ladder down with it. Just like that, they’re stranded. The cylindrical pole that’s left is too smooth to climb down. The rope they have isn’t long enough. And though they’ve got their phones, they’re up too high to get service. There is nothing up there but the two of them and their do-or-die ingenuity.

At the start of the movie, Hunter is all giddy enthusiasm, like a Reese Witherspoon go-getter from the ’90s, and Becky, lost in her malaise, is all po-faced misery and dread. But the two actors show you how these women come alive, and connect, by climbing. It’s through their expressive skill that we believe in what we’re seeing. “Fall” was made for just $3 million, and it’s good enough to remind me of another perilous small-scale thriller centered on two people doing all they can to survive: “Open Water,” the scary 2003 indie that basically extended the opening sequence of “Jaws” over 80 minutes. Movies like these come with built-in narrative devices — like, for instance, the soap-opera revelation that comes up between Becky and Hunter. There are moments when the script overdoes the millennial effrontery, especially when it’s focused on Hunter’s identity as a YouTuber who wants to document the whole climb for her 60,000 followers (“This bad boy is over 2,000 feet tall, and your homegirls are going to be climbing to the tippy tippy top!”).

Mostly, though, we’re with these two, living through every vulture attack and sudden drop that involves something like hanging from a rope and trying to grab a stranded backpack. Is there a pedestrian below who could save them? The movie deals with that possibility in a way that recalls the Robert Redford-stranded-at-sea movie “All Is Lost.” “Fall” is a technical feat of a thriller, yet it’s not without a human center. It earns your clenched gut and your white knuckles.

Reviewed online, Aug. 9, 2022. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 107 MIN.

• Production: A Lionsgate release of a Tea Shop Production, Capstone Studios, Grindstone Entertainment Group production, in association with Flawless, Cousin Jones. Producers: David Haring, James Harris, Mark Lane, Scott Mann, Christian Mercuri. Executive producer: Roman Viaris, Barry Brooker, John Long, Dan Asma.
• Crew: Director: Scott Mann. Screenplay: Jonathan Frank, Scott Mann. Camera: MacGregor. Editor: Robert Hall. Music: Tim Despic.
• With: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mason Gooding.

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A Movie So Ideal for the End of Summer That It’s Actually Called Fall

August has always been a wasteland, the Sunday night of months, when the weather is at its sticky worst and everybody who has the ability to fuck off to someplace more pleasant has already done so. If you don’t have the means, there’s the cheaper sanctuary of the cineplex, with its welcoming darkness and arctic air-conditioning — except that after a summer in which theatrical releases mounted a rousing comeback , the studios neglected to schedule any big movies for this period in which we most need something dumb and fun. Fortunately, there’s a not-that-big movie that fits the bill of being silly and simple enough to fill a lazy afternoon without demanding anything strenuous from its audience at all. That movie is Fall , in which two young women climb up to the top of a remote TV tower for the sake of closure — and also content — and then get stuck up there.

Fall is part of that grand cinematic tradition in which attractive actors get trapped somewhere dangerous and have to struggle to save themselves, hopefully for at least the 80 minutes required for an acceptable feature-length. Recent-ish participants include Ryan Reynolds, who in a lull in his career back in 2010 spent the entirety of Buried in a wooden coffin; his spouse Blake Lively, who was trapped on a rock in the ocean by a persistent shark in the improbably good in 2016’s The Shallows ; and Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, and Kevin Zegers, who got marooned on a ski lift suspended over some convenient wolves in 2010’s Frozen . Like those movies, what Fall offers is a double layer of tension. Will Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) figure out a way to make it off a 2,000-foot TV tower unscathed? And will writer-director Scott Mann figure out a way to draw out the suspense for long enough when there are only so many things that can happen on top of a 2,000-foot TV tower and one of them is in the title?

Does it really matter? I’m tired. Tapped out. I have no means for a vacation at the moment and nothing else left to give to this season, and Fall asks for so little that it feels like too much to demand something as basic as logic or characters in return. See, Becky’s husband Dan (Mason Gooding) died during a rock-climbing excursion the two of them were taking with Hunter, and a year later, Becky’s still mourning — you can tell by the fact that she drinks alone at bars. Then Hunter, her internet-famous bestie, shows up with a proposal that will help Becky get her mojo back: They’re going to climb the decommissioned B67 TV tower out in the California desert. Becky is a sad brunette and Hunter is a fun blonde, and that’s about all there is to the two, despite a brief gesture toward an extreme-sports frenemies dynamic right out of The Descent . Braving the height looks like the bigger challenge at first — there’s a ladder up the side of the tower, so it doesn’t require Spider-Man-like free-climbing skills. But then the ladder, rusted and neglected, sheers off, leaving the two women trapped on a narrow platform high above the earth.

There’s blistering sun, and an attempt to get help with a flare gun, and when things get really desperate, some marauding vultures. Mann and his crew built a version of the tower close to a cliff to give his shots a real sense of dizzying height and a more tangible sense of danger. An incredibly weak twist pays off with a hilariously gruesome, triumphant finale. But what really makes Becky and Hunter’s little saga so seasonally appropriate is that it feels like a consolation for those of us feeling a little stuck ourselves. These two daring, adventure-seeking women head off for what’s supposed to be a fun getaway that tests their limits and restores their sense of self, and what happens? They get stranded, sunburnt and dehydrated, unable to get a phone signal or anyone’s attention as scavengers try to eat them. Sure, the vertiginous shots up the side of the tower are stomach-turning, but what’s really satisfying is the message that sometimes it’s better just to stay home. It’s Fall , get it? Summer is over. 

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Fall Movie Review : A terrific survival thriller with heart pounding intensity

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Our overall critic’s rating is not an average of the sub scores below.

Fall - Official Trailer

Users' Reviews

Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive . Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.

Saumen Bagchi 921 341 days ago

It is not so horrific and spine chilling , there was more room to make it better

K K 414 days ago

Could have been better. However, worth a watch as it conveys a message to the vloggers to be cautious and absolutely sure of what they want to do before engaging in dangerous stunts in the name of adventure and gaining fame through social media

Surya Manupati 24 417 days ago

Another Version of the 2013 movie Gravity. Same tropes and everything. But yeah not bad, nothing great either.

Smruti Ranjan Jena 32953 483 days ago

one time okay movie................

Kaushik Biswas 5481 484 days ago

A really wonderful one. A new type and tension build up is nicely done. A very good story and script. Nicely done movie.

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Fall review: an unexciting entry in the survival thriller genre.

Fall will be torturous for anyone afraid of heights but could otherwise be a bit of a bore for someone looking for thrills that go beyond that.  

Like spinning a wheel labeled with people's greatest fears and landing on acrophobia, the latest entry in the thriller subgenre of single-location, anxiety-inducing situations is Fall , a movie that will be torturous for anyone afraid of heights but could otherwise be a bit of a bore for someone looking for thrills that go beyond that. Movies like Fall don't require much character work, nor do they need much plot beyond the situation at the center of the film and Fall is no overachiever. With predictable twists and one grating character, the Lionsgate movie tries to do something different from others like it, but it can't quite reach the heights that its main characters aren't (and should be) afraid of.

Fall follows Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) who, when the movie opens, are climbing a rock face with Becky's husband Dan (Mason Gooding). When Dan tragically falls to his death, Becky is sent into a tailspin of grief, giving up her favorite pastimes of free-climbing and pole-dancing to wallow alone at the bar. Soon enough, Hunter shows up with a proposition to climb a 2,000-foot tall radio tower. Mainly, it's so she can film a drone video of Becky hanging from the ledge for her 60,000 followers. When Becky and Hunter reach the top of the out-of-commission tower, the ladder falls, and they are stuck nearly half a mile above the desert with no cell service, no water, and no way down.

Related: Prey Review: Predator Franchise Is Revived In Efficient & Violent Thriller

As far as survival thrillers go, Fall follows the playbook established by films like 47 Meters Down or Crawl . As Becky and Hunter look out at the desert surrounding them, Fall offers plenty of visuals that are rendered well enough, with the desert surrounding them becoming even more deadly 2,000 feet above the ground. With limited space to move, it adds a new dimension to claustrophobic thrillers, one that makes the sky just as scary as the endless ocean in survival thrillers like Open Water .

Unfortunately, it doesn't add much to the genre itself. One twist that's supposed to land with an emotional punch is telegraphed early on and in a way that will make what's coming quite obvious to keen viewers. Another twist, while not as obvious, doesn't land as well as it's supposed to. Fall's nearly two-hour runtime also makes the circumstances feel drawn out when thrillers like these are better served with brisk runtimes that don't allow for much thought in between their obligatory plot points.

As Becky and Hunter's circumstances become increasingly dire, their efforts at rescue become almost laughable. That's the problem with Fall's setup. There's not much they can do except watch from 2,000 feet in the air as their attempts fail. There's no way for them to climb down and no way for them to call for help. They must rely on hair-brained attempts at contacting those on the ground and when those fail, there's not much left. While their attempts at rescue are funny, nothing is as funny as the film's incorporation of Becky's pole-dancing skills or its use of the song "Cherry Pie" by Warrant in one nail-biting sequence.

Gardner and Currey do what they can with the material, but both Gooding and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (as Becky's father) are criminally underused, a fault of the film's setup more than anything else. Sure, the film adds a new perspective to the survival thriller genre, but it relies so heavily on the idea that heights are scary (even if its protagonists don't think so) that there's not much left beyond that by the end of the film. When Fall concludes, it commits a cardinal sin of the genre that may have audiences scratching their heads.

Fall releases in theaters on August 12. The film is 107 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for bloody images, intense peril, and strong language.

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Profanity and mixed messages in perilous pulse-pounder.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Themes of friendship, facing your fears, and livin

The main characters are young women who are incred

Story centers on two strong, brave female mountain

Explicit modeling of reckless, dangerous choices.

Women wear low-cut tank tops, athletic gear, night

Frequent use of profanity, including "ass," "a--ho

Grieving character gets drunk and has to be stoppe

Parents need to know that Fall is an action thriller dealing with overcoming grief and fear. It centers on two young, adventurous women -- Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) -- who may be aspirational figures for teen girls. They're incredibly brave, and one is a fearless daredevil…

Positive Messages

Themes of friendship, facing your fears, and living life to the fullest. That said, living by this mantra gets the characters into a life-threatening situation.

Positive Role Models

The main characters are young women who are incredibly strong and brave, as well as creative problem solvers.

Diverse Representations

Story centers on two strong, brave female mountain climbers/adventurers, Becky and Hunter, though there are moments in which they're objectified. Black supporting character.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Explicit modeling of reckless, dangerous choices. Peril comes from characters putting themselves in a dangerous situation, but threats that come from nature are terrifying, realistic, sometimes fatal. Wounds are bloody and graphic. Vultures peck and disembowel a carcass; organs seen. Suicidal intent displayed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Women wear low-cut tank tops, athletic gear, nightgowns and are photographed through "the male gaze." Hunter is a YouTuber whose memorable mantra is "t-ts for clicks!" Pole-dancing reference and quick visual. Romantic conversation between married couple in bed together.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent use of profanity, including "ass," "a--hole," "d--k," "screw that," "s--t," "son of a bitch," "t-ts," and "whore." One use of "f--k off."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Grieving character gets drunk and has to be stopped from driving. Prescription pills are taken, and a character pours many into her hand to indicate that she's considering intentionally overdosing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Fall is an action thriller dealing with overcoming grief and fear. It centers on two young, adventurous women -- Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter ( Virginia Gardner ) -- who may be aspirational figures for teen girls. They're incredibly brave, and one is a fearless daredevil. But -- and perhaps this is because almost everyone behind the camera is a middle-aged man -- there are elements that undermine the female-empowering storyline. For example, there's a gratuitous pole-dancing scene. And the camera doesn't miss an opportunity to show how their tops just can't contain their breasts ("t-ts for clicks!" is Hunter's mantra). The women are trying to survive the elements, and the peril they face is nonstop and intense. Injuries are graphic, bloody, and even deadly. A despondent character gets drunk in a bar, almost drives home, and contemplates suicide. Persistent use of profanity includes "ass," "d--k," "s--t," and "f--k off." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (18)
• Kids say (61)

Based on 18 parent reviews

Warning, not for young teens

Great 11 and up., what's the story.

In FALL, rock climbers Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter ( Virginia Gardner ) set out to climb one of the United States' largest structures, an abandoned radio tower. When the 2,000-foot climb doesn't go as planned, the women must find a way to get to safety -- or die trying.

Is It Any Good?

Two women climb to new heights, only to find they can't escape the patriarchy in writer-director Scott Mann's vertigo-inducing actioner. Fall is competently made, with cinematography that will have viewers on the edge of their seats. It's one part suspense, one part horror. This is about surviving the elements, like a different kind of Cast Awa y -- one borne out of the main characters' recklessly overconfident decisions. And, just like in a horror movie, viewers will want to yell at the screen: "Don't do it!"

From a parenting standpoint, there's a great benefit to that approach: Perhaps, when faced with the option of participating in dangerous situations, teens who've seen Fall will "know better" because they've walked in the characters' shoes. There's no doubt that Mann is a dad, especially when the storyline takes a turn that reinforces the idea that "Father knows best." But there's also no doubt that Mann and his co-writer Jonathan Frank are men who grew up seeing women portrayed on screen in a different way than we expect today -- and that's where Fall plummets. Warrant's "Cherry Pie" blasts throughout, and it's hard to imagine that two 28-year-old women in 2022 would even know this sexist 1990 anthem, much less make it their ring tone. They're wardrobed so that their breasts spill out of their shirts, with Mann so aware that it's objectification nonsense that he writes a justification into the script. And, somehow in this story that's about a woman finding her inner strength when she's already incredibly physically strong, the script finds a way to make it about men ( sigh ). Just like Becky and Hunter's plans, this film starts with promise, only to drop with a thud.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the appeal -- and risks -- of extreme sports. Why do you think people choose to participate in dangerous activities? What role do YouTube and social media play in encouraging creators to attempt wild stunts?

Would you call Fall "female-forward storytelling"? Why, or why not? How do you think it might have been different if it were written or directed by a woman?

What are the movie's messages? Does the story undercut those messages? If so, how? What will you take away?

Is drinking glamorized? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?

Talk about the courage that Becky and Hunter demonstrate. Is it misguided, given the events that transpire? Where's the line between daring and foolhardy?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 12, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : September 27, 2022
• Cast : Grace Caroline Currey , Virginia Gardner , Jeffrey Dean Morgan
• Director : Scott Mann
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Thriller
• Topics : Sports and Martial Arts , Friendship
• Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
• Run time : 107 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : bloody images, intense peril, and strong language
• Last updated : September 29, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The Fall Guy

A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film. A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film. A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film.

• David Leitch
• Drew Pearce
• Glen A. Larson
• Ryan Gosling
• Emily Blunt
• Aaron Taylor-Johnson
• 17 User reviews
• 51 Critic reviews
• 78 Metascore
• 1 nomination

• Colt Seavers

• Jody Moreno

• Venti Kushner
• Birdie the PA
• (as Ioane Sa'Ula)
• Rush McCabe
• Metalstorm AD
• Metalstorm Writer (Darla)

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• Trivia The movie is a remake of The Fall Guy (1981) . In it, Lee Majors played Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who also moonlights as a bounty hunter when there is little movie work. Majors himself and the show's famous vehicle, the 1981 GMC K-2500 Wideside, will appear in the film.

[from trailer]

Colt Seavers : [preparing his dog, sitting next to him in a truck, for a jump] I'll buy you a drink after this is over! Engage your core!

[cut to Colt icing his fist in a frozen margarita with the dog sitting next to him lapping up a drink in a beer glass]

• Crazy credits During the closing credits the left side of the screen is dedicated to stunts done for the movie. And then an additional scene, that includes cameos.
• Connections Featured in Amanda the Jedi Show: The BEST and Weirdest Movies you (mostly) Haven't Seen Yet | Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
• Soundtracks I Was Made for Lovin' You Written by Paul Stanley, Vini Poncia & Desmond Child Performed by YUNGBLUD

User reviews 17

• Apr 24, 2024
• How long will The Fall Guy be? Powered by Alexa
• May 3, 2024 (United States)
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• Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
• Entertainment 360
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• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $125,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 6 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• IMAX 6-Track

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The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is an entertaining ride through the world of action movies

The double-edged sword of being a stunt double — the extreme visibility of the death-defying manoeuvres they perform to audiences of millions, the dearth of acknowledgement and the invisibility of their labour — is mined to perfection in The Fall Guy.

A reimagining of the 1981 TV series directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool 2) — himself a seasoned stunt performer — The Fall Guy is an ode to films and the unsung heroes who make it all happen.

Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the stunt double of mega celebrity actor Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson); he's the beating heart of Tom's blockbuster movies, the best in the business. He's also in a casual situationship with cute camerawoman Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), united by their shared love language of car doughnuts, and as happy as anyone can be in a job where you're routinely catapulted off great heights, burned and pummelled.

That is, until a freak accident leaves Colt with a broken back, a broken heart and a broken sense of self.

Working listlessly as a valet for a Mexican restaurant, Colt is jolted out of his depressive stupor when pugnacious producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) calls him out of the blue with an enticing proposition.

Jody is directing her debut feature — a comically naff futuristic sci-fi romance called Metalstorm — with Tom in the lead role, and apparently wants her thwarted lover to be the stunt double.

The plot thickens further when Tom disappears, and Colt is sent on a wild goose chase to hunt him down for the sake of Jody's movie. If he discovers Tom, maybe he'll have another chance with Jody.

If this sounds needlessly convoluted, it is. But The Fall Guy is nonetheless an entertaining romp through the shadowy world of drugs, murder and thugs — set in our very own Sydney, with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge the picturesque backdrop to many a scene.

There are high-octane chase sequences, big explosions, implausible helicopter leaps and a French attack dog with one trick (spoiler: it's not kind to men).

Appearances by Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once) as Tom's downtrodden assistant and Winston Duke (Black Panther) as Metalstorm's stunt coordinator ups the star power of an already star-studded line-up.

The humour in The Fall Guy is both clever and slapstick. Gosling has previously proven his versatility as a comedic actor in Barbie and The Nice Guys, and it's gratifying to see one of the biggest film stars of our time play an underdog.

He delivers offhand, pithy one-liners with his trademark crooked smile and affable charm, expertly balancing machismo with the vulnerability of being the perennial punching bag. Blunt's Jody is his perfect counterpart with her endearing dorkiness, resourcefulness (that saves Colt from many a pickle) and straight-faced comic delivery.

Playing into the structure of a film within a film and taking place predominantly on a set, there's a heightened appreciation for the art of filmmaking in The Fall Guy.

It's a mosaic of film references: the characters speak to each other in metaphors and similes that recall Memento, Notting Hill, The Fugitive and The Last of the Mohicans.

There are meta references to the framework that governs films, like when someone asks Jody if her Metalstorm characters should reference the trouble she's having in nailing the third act (in many ways reminiscent of The Fall Guy's sagging final act).

Complementing the action-packed scenes is the film's upbeat soundtrack, a nostalgia-fest for anyone born before 1995.

It's fitting that the unofficial theme song is KISS's I Was Made For Lovin' You, but less expected is the inspired choice to set one of the chase scenes against Phil Collins' power ballad Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), a truly rousing choice that resuscitated my love for this 80s banger. The Darkness, Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift feature, too.

With much of his currency located in his uncanny likeness to Tom, Colt transcends his forever status as the "fall guy" to exact justice and seek retribution, while Jody's trajectory from camerawoman to director places her at the forefront of dictating her creative vision, instead of enacting someone else's.

The Fall Guy is foremost an action-comedy flick, yes, but it's also a love story between two people becoming the main characters in their own stories.

The Fall Guy is in cinemas now.

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The Fall Guy review: Ryan Gosling is a screwball delight in this sweat-drenched stunt spectacle

N ot to jinx it, but it looks as if the backlash against Hollywood’s overreliance on CGI has finally arrived. First came the high-profile failures of several digitally drenched, characterless sequels – think Aquaman 2 and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny . Then came the Sag-Aftra strikes , which saw actors push back against the use of AI to replicate their image, while multiple news stories surfaced alleging exploitative working conditions for VFX artists. And, now, suddenly, it seems in vogue for directors like Tim Burton to boast about the lack of CGI in their movies . Could it be that good, old-fashioned, practical moviemaking is finally back in style?

David Leitch’s The Fall Guy , then, is ideally timed. It’s a sweat-drenched spectacle that celebrates the harmonious union between heart-stopping stunt work and charismatic movie stars. Ryan Gosling, still high on that Kenergy , embraces his uncanny ability to be both the coolest and the goofiest guy in the room . He also brings a little screwball energy to the role of seasoned stuntman Colt Seavers, as he attempts to win back the heart of his director, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).

Jody’s leading man Tom Ryder ( Aaron Taylor-Johnson , channelling just a hint of Matthew McConaughey) is missing. He’s been in Australia, shooting Jody’s debut film Metalstorm , a sci-fi epic that sits precisely at the midpoint between Dune and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension . Producer Gail Meyer ( Ted Lasso ’s Hannah Waddingham ), sends Colt to track him down.

Colt ghosted Jody after an on-set accident left him first with a broken back, then with a bruised ego. See, his line of work demands that he take every hit with a thumbs up and a smile, then be disappeared into the moviemaking machine. No one talks about – or especially celebrates – the stunt performers who risk life and limb for far more famous people. At one point, Colt is asked if they hand out Oscars to people like him. His crestfallen “nope” speaks volumes. The Fall Guy ’s hope is that, once Colt’s somersaulted several vehicles and saved the day, the audience will share in that dismay.

In an industry first, Chris O’Hara has been credited as The Fall Guy ’s “stunt designer”, versus the traditional “stunt coordinator”, in an effort to underline his work’s artistry. And, true to that promise, the film features a number of practical showstoppers, among them a record-breaking vehicular cannon roll, some drug-fuelled hand-to-hand combat, and an explosive speed boat jump. Leitch treats these moments with adrenaline-doped reverence, akin to the shuttle launch in Armageddon or the jet takeoffs in Top Gun . Similarly, he purposefully draws attention to the wires, camera cranes, and small army of crew members required to make them possible.

Meanwhile, Drew Pearce’s script matches its zip with a self-referential touch. At its weakest, it’s overly reliant on pop culture: the scene of Colt sobbing to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” works, even if it’s a lesser iteration of what the TV series The Bear did with “Love Story”; there’s also an otherwise uncharacteristic, extremely poor taste joke about Amber Heard and Johnny Depp . But Blunt and Gosling have chemistry, and so does Gosling with everyone else, including co-stars Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu and – somehow – a dog called Jean-Claude who only responds to French commands.

Ideologically, The Fall Guy is a film that pits craftsmanship against the fame-and-money-hungry – Colt is scanned by 360-degree cameras so that his face can be digitally replaced by Tom’s, all so he can later boast that he does his own stunts in interviews. If the film results in stunt performers gaining a little more respect from the public, that’s the ideal. If it merely reminds them how likeable Gosling is, that’s good, too.

Dir: David Leitch. Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Winston Duke, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Stephanie Hsu. 12A, 126 minutes

‘The Fall Guy’ is in cinemas from 2 May

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Review: 'The Fall Guy' fumbles somewhere between parody and sincerity

Ryan Gosling ’s latest movie, "The Fall Guy," aims high, but falls short. 

It tries to imbue its goofy action-movie parody with a generic, mediocre story. The result doesn’t satisfy either potential, leaving viewers of any predisposition disappointed.

I had a good time, for sure, and the movie is a blast — but it didn’t blow me away.

“The Fall Guy,” by “Deadpool 2” and “Bullet Train” director David Leitch,  follows Ryan Gosling as a stuntman forced to track down the missing star of a movie directed by his love interest, Emily Blunt . Gosling’s character uses his knowledge of stunt work to moonlight as a full-blown action hero in his escapades. 

Leitch himself is a trained stuntman, having done stunt work on movies such as “Ocean’s Eleven,” “ The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Speed Racer.”  And the film really leans into the "stuntman” premise, delivering scene after scene of over-the-top, and very impressive, action. The schtick doesn’t get old; each new stunt somehow manages to top the last. 

In fact, I wish “The Fall Guy” had leaned more into its hammy, meathead action. The film comes too close to parody to be an effective, sincere action picture, but it doesn’t lean into it quite enough to be considered true satire. That said, the stunts themselves were fun enough to warrant the occasional tonal unevenness. 

Blunt, of course, shines, and the leading character is not exactly untrodden ground for the thrice Oscar-nominated Goslin g, so he nails the performance.

“The Fall Guy” is also very loosely based on a 1980s TV show of the same name , which I had never heard of, but the similarities seem to stop at a few characters’ names and the barest bones of the premise.

I’ll admit. I may be expecting too much from “The Fall Guy.” After all, it’s a funny action comedy with a slew of current big name actors, each of whom absolutely kills it. What more does anyone want?

Well, I want a cohesive tone.

And that’s not to say I don’t like a good parody! The “loving lampoon” parts of the movie are my favorites by far. I wish the movie had leaned into those more, especially given how well they work and how much the sincere scenes can drag. 

There is a point in the film, about two-thirds of the way through, in which it seems like it’s about to end in one big climactic moment. I would’ve been happy with that ending, but the movie had around 35 minutes left, and 20 of those minutes were the most tediously serious scenes in the whole affair.

These few minutes were definitely the low point, and I was sitting in my seat painstakingly counting the seconds until the inevitable grand finale.

And, oh, man, the finale. What a finale.

After 90-plus minutes of me screaming “Commit! Commit!” in my head every time the movie flip-flopped between parody and sincerity, I finally got my wish. I won’t spoil anything here, but the big ending is really, really big. 

I don’t want it to seem like I didn’t like this movie — I did! Most technical elements are pretty awesome. The stunts and special effects are, naturally, spectacular, and the comedy in the script is as funny as you’d expect it to be. 

I also want to mention how well the ensemble cast works. Normally, I’m not a big fan of movies full of big-name celebrities in every role, but I went into “The Fall Guy” totally blind, and I’ll admit I enjoyed seeing a few familiar faces that I wasn’t expecting, though I wish “ Everything Everywhere All at Once’s ” Stephanie Hsu was in a few more scenes. 

All in all, “The Fall Guy” is definitely worth seeing, just don’t go into it with your expectations too high — it’s more of a fun romp than a cohesive film.

@banana_peels

@dthlifestyle | [email protected]

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The ‘fallout 4’ next gen update is not going great.

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Bethesda is riding high off the success of Amazon Prime’s Fallout TV show, which has blown up interest in the last four Fallout games, Fallout 3, 4, New Vegas and 76, increasing sales and playercounts massively.

It is great timing that Fallout 4 just got a “next-gen” update after many years, except that…it is very much not going well, and for some it’s doing more harm than good to the game, and reinforcing Bethesda’s “buggy” reputation. What’s going on?

• PlayStation players who got the game through PlayStation Plus Extra were not able to upgrade to the next-gen version, confusing many. Bethesda has now chimed in that it will indeed be available without explaining what happened, but hopefully at least that aspect will be cleared up soon.
• On PC, there is concern that this really did not do all that much and actually broke a lot of things. The number of bugs fixed is not all that many for an update supposedly this big. The update has broken a number of longtime Fallout 4 mods many players have been running for years and thrown future mod projects into chaos. And while there is now ultrawide support for the game, it stretches out the UI with no FOV slider to be able to fix that. The game is also still locked at 60 fps on PC and cannot go higher.
• Steam deck users have had their settings wiped out by the update in addition to the above PC issues.
• Quality mode for the game is broken on Xbox Series X/S, according to reports. Disabling performance mode doesn’t do anything, as the game stays at 60 fps and the resolution remains the same. This does not appear to be happening on PlayStation.

The Best Gaming Mouse That’ll Improve Your Aim

This does seem to be going at least somewhat better on console than PC, which I suppose was the main focus of the “next-gen” update, given the next-gen consoles we’re talking about. But it’s not a great start and many players excited to play an upgraded version of the game have been left disappointed. Perhaps this will all be fixed in time, but it shouldn’t have rolled out with all these issues, that’s for sure. I thought Bethesda was getting a bit better with this stuff (I legitimately did not have a single serious bug in my first Starfield playthrough) but this needed some more time and care.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .

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The Fall Guy review: "A snappy, sharp, sexy screwball action romance"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

A snappy, sharp, sexy screwball romance, with sparking chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, great support from Hannah Waddingham and ace action.

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Those who saw Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s skit at the 2024 Academy Awards, introducing a tribute to the stunt community, will surely have had their appetites whetted for The Fall Guy. A contemporary reboot of the 1980s TV series, in which Lee Majors played a stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter, this buzzy action comedy fizzes largely thanks to the easy-on-the-eye chemistry that Gosling and Blunt showed on Oscar night. On this evidence, they could – and should – form an ongoing double act.

Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a successful stunt performer who is having a bit of a thing with camera operator Jody Moreno (Blunt). For the past six years, he’s been the double for A-list star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but things go disastrously wrong during a calamitous daredevil 100ft plunge. Rushed to hospital with a broken back, Colt is out of the game. When the movie cuts to 18 months later, he’s eking out a living as a valet at a Mexican restaurant.

Out of the blue, he’s contacted by producer Gail Meyer (Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham), who requires his services in Sydney, Australia, on the set of new sci-fi Metalstorm, which stars Ryder. When Colt arrives, he’s shocked to discover that Jody is calling the shots as director, and she is less than pleased to see him. For the past year and a half, Colt had ghosted Jody, struggling to cope with his injuries and his feelings for her. Needless to say, their reunion is on a rocky road.

The plot’s motor really starts to spin when it appears that Ryder has gone missing and Colt is sent to track him down, with help from stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke) and the actor’s personal assistant, Alma Milan (Stephanie Hsu). When Colt starts to play detective, the twists come thick and fast, as bodies pile up and it transpires that our hero may be ‘the fall guy’ in more ways than one.

The search for Ryder keeps the plot ticking over, but it really plays second fiddle to the two leads trading barbs and steamy looks as the craziness of a full-scale Hollywood production goes on around them. Boasting the tagline ‘It’s high noon at the edge of the universe’, Metalstorm looks like the sort of franchise nonsense studio executives greenlight in their sleep – just one of the good-natured ribbings the film industry endures in a screenplay by Drew Pearce ( Iron Man 3 ).

While there isn’t a lot of in-depth probing of Seavers – as character studies go, the film operates on a superficial level – The Fall Guy is never less than bags of fun. Some of the best scenes come as Blunt and a high-Kenergy Gosling occupy each other’s orbit, like the sequence where Jody repeatedly demands Colt perform a stunt where he’s set on fire and yanked into a rock while she yells out her grievances through a megaphone.

The Gos and Blunt aren’t the only perfect match, meanwhile, with the movie directed by former stuntman David Leitch ( Atomic Blonde ). The filmmaker brings his skill set to all the action sequences, particularly a superb speedboat chase through Sydney Harbour, but he also sharpens the penchant for comedy he showed with Deadpool 2 . On this evidence, he deserves to fully break out of the action-director mold.

He is, of course, aided by a fine support cast. Waddingham, with a mass of dark curls, is very funny as the bullish producer, while Taylor- Johnson has a riot as the a-hole A-lister, coming on like a sort of über-Matthew McConaughey. Duke (Us, Black Panther ) is also very watchable, making Tucker more than just a sidekick as he accompanies Colt on his adrenaline-fuelled adventures.

Admittedly, the connection to the original TV show is tenuous at best. Let’s face it, The Fall Guy is only likely to be remembered by those over 50, and even then it’s hardly a show like The A-Team or The Dukes of Hazzard to get the nostalgia juices flowing. You’re left with the feeling that the film could have been made under another title, with no brand recognition, and be no less successful. Still, that’s Hollywood for you; at least the result emerges as a fine tribute to the unsung heroes of the movie business.

It’s also a tad too long, with the final act stretching the conceit a bit too far (although the climactic sequence and the footage that accompanies the end credits are worth the protracted running time). But beyond these minor gripes, The Fall Guy is an effervescent comedy that truly flies. Finally, those stunning stuntmen have a film to call their own.

The Fall Guy is released in UK cinemas on May 2 and in US theaters on May 3.  For more, check out our list of the best action movies of all time.

James Mottram is a freelance film journalist, author of books that dive deep into films like Die Hard and Tenet, and a regular guest on the Total Film podcast. You'll find his writings on GamesRadar+ and Total Film, and in newspapers and magazines from across the world like The Times, The Independent, The i, Metro, The National, Marie Claire, and MindFood. 

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Season 1 – The Fall

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Less sensationalistic and more provocative than most police procedurals, The Fall is unapologetically sexy with pressure-building tension driven by plausible characters and motifs.

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Before directing his first film, “After the Fall,” Saar Klein edited Terrence Malick ’s “ The Thin Red Line ” and “ The New World .” As such, one wouldn’t be surprised to discover a few Malick-like touches in Klein’s debut film. Klein sprinkles approximations of the master director throughout “After the Fall,” but these attempts never spring organically from the material. The occasional narration and the long, swirly glimpses at nature are instead hammered into a substandard “crime drama” that reeks of the Idiot Plot Syndrome.

As in Malick’s work, water is a common visual motif in “After the Fall,” except here it is represented by that symbol of suburban privilege, the swimming pool. Ben Scanlon ( Wes Bentley ) installed the pool in the hopes it would raise the property values on the New Mexico home he shares with his wife, Susan ( Vinessa Shaw ) and kids. The camera imbues the pool with all manner of symbolism, first by the dreamy shots of Ben and his kids’ naked limbs flailing about underwater, then later in a sequence where Ben attempts to chlorine himself to death. The home improvement loan Ben took out for this watery deathtrap drives the plot toward crime and attempted suicide.

Every morning, Ben fakes going to an insurance adjuster job from which he has been fired. He is never seen actively looking for a job, nor does it once cross his mind that his ruse will be discovered. Instead, he researches closed cases in the hopes that his employer will rehire him. “You don’t even work here anymore!” Ben’s boss tells him after Ben shows up with useless new facts about a case. After convincingly begging for his job, Ben is shown the door.

Ben lost his job because he thought everyone he investigated was honest, a plot point that could have yielded satisfying results had it been explored. “After the Fall” attempts to present Ben as a bastion of self-righteous honesty, but remember, he’s been lying to his wife since the opening credits. Had he simply told the truth and either asked Susan to try a temporarily return to the workforce, or borrowed money from his snooty father in law, this movie would be over in 15 minutes. Instead, Ben has a Meet Cute with robbery, and it sends him down a suspense-deprived path of criminality.

Ben gets the idea that he can support his family illegally when he walks in on a real estate agent’s illicit tryst in the house she’s showing. The realtor and her kept man immediately hand over their wallets (it helps that Ben has a gun for reasons too dopey to explain here) and a light bulb goes off over Ben’s head. Soon, Ben is robbing convenience stores, gas stations and the car pound where the repo man took his car. Susan is none the wiser, despite the fact that these petty larcenies barely support the lifestyle to which the Scanlons have become accustomed.

Ben is an incredibly inept thief. On his face he wears the sheerest stocking this side of a high priced escort’s legs, making him immediately recognizable through the nylon. He hits places he’s been to before AND he walks in front of mirrors and cameras before he puts on his panty hose. His ineptitude is ignored by Klein’s script, which not only lets him get away with the crimes but also provides him with a deus ex machina named Frank ( Jason Isaacs ), a cop who ensures Ben is never prosecuted despite being recognized.

Isaacs’ 5-o’clock shadow-wearing character feels ported from another, more grizzled movie. He slams boilermakers while sitting alone at the local bowling alley. He approaches strange men and asks if they’d like free beer. Frank has his own barely addressed side story before he meets Ben; we see him sending a birthday card to his estranged son before he breaks up a drunken bowling altercation amongst Ben’s friends.

Eventually, Frank tells Ben that he and Ben’s dirty cop of a Dad worked together at the precinct. “I knew who you were when I first saw you,” he tells Ben, a miscellaneous detail thrown in to explain why Frank would befriend him in the first place.

There’s a rather disturbing sense of privilege in “After the Fall.” It can’t help but justify Ben’s actions by stacking the deck against the victims. The places he robs are staffed by people far poorer than Ben, and several of these employees are shown in a negative light pre-robbery. It’s as if Ben deserves the right to terrorize these people rather than find a job or be truthful to his spouse. His crimes are eventually pawned off on the wrong guy, and “After the Fall” is too cowardly to fully consider the repercussions of sending someone to jail for crimes they did not commit. The sole nod to this travesty of justice is an “ambiguous” ending that is not as ambiguous as the filmmakers think.

Since we know “After the Fall” will never let its anti-hero get in trouble, there is absolutely no suspense during the robberies nor at home. When Susan finds out Ben has been fired, he does some kind of Jedi mind trick to get her to believe him instead of his employer. And when she finds Ben’s gun and stolen loot, she leaves with the kids but then inexplicably returns without question. She’s practically a Stepford Wife.

Klein goes berserk with the nods to Malick. Anyone who’s ever complained about Malick’s narration (and I’ve done so for “The Thin Red Line”, so I’m guilty) will think again after hearing some of this junk. The closing credits of “After the Fall” feature a thank you credit for Terrence Malick. It should have been an apology.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

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Film credits.

After The Fall (2014)

110 minutes

Wes Bentley as Bill

Vinessa Shaw as Susan

Jason Isaacs as Frank

Haley Bennett as Ruby

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