The Fall Guy: A love letter to action cinema

This year’s Oscars marked the first time that a presentation paid tribute to a craft that is always relegated to the background despite making a crucial contribution to the vitality of cinema. Stunt men and women risk health and life in their everyday work on the set in order to create unforgettable film moments for the audience. In doing so, they turn their heads to many stars who then claim in interviews that they did the dangerous stunts themselves – which in most cases (with the exception of Jackie Chan) is a blatant exaggeration for PR purposes. Even though stunts have been part of the medium’s original soup since Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, there is still a lack of an Oscar category that honors the profession. David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy”, which formulates an ode to this craft in the finest popcorn format, could change that.