The Fall Guy

Several soon-to-be-released films poke irreverent fun at the action film genre, including Boy Kills World (out April 26th) and Deadpool & Wolverine (out July 26th). Another example, which we explore in this week’s blog, is David Leitch’s new film The Fall Guy. This film’s Official Trailer #2 re-works Journey’s 1980 hit “Any Way You Want It.” The use of an arena rock hit song from 40+ years ago immediately jolts us out of the expected action film trailer tropes of suspenseful synthesizers and deep dramatic drums (but don’t worry: this trailer uses them as well!). It involves a comedic take on a stuntman (played by Ryan Gosling) who—while in love with the director of an action film (Emily Blunt)—goes on a chase after a movie’s missing star (named Tom Ryder).

The first 10 seconds of the trailer introduce the flamboyant title character crashing through the window of a streetcar on a scooter. A pulsing bass line enters to set up the tempo for “Any Way You Want It” while Gosling’s husky baritone voiceover is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s voice in “ spaghetti western” films.

At 0:14, trailer triplets lead us into the chorus of “Any Way You Want It.” As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, trailer triplets (usually played on large drums) are a common musical device heard towards the end of an action film trailer to build intensity. Thrown in early on and throughout the trailer, the music team unabashedly overuses this device for comedic effect.

From 0:15-0:25 we get a clever call and response between the vocals of Journey’s chorus and lines of voiceover narration from Gosling. When the chorus ends at 0:29 we transition to Gosling talking in a car with his love interest, “director” Blunt. Notice here how the Journey song continues, but is filtered differently to sound as though it could be coming from the car speakers.

After a genre-typical pause for comedic dialogue, we hear another humorous sonic treatment at 0:44 when the name “Tom Ryder” is repeated so that it sounds like “ Tom-Tom-Tom-Tom Ryder.”

Gosling is sent to look for Ryder, and when he arrives at his apparently deserted house (0:54), we hear solo vocals from Journey, with lots of reverb (echo). Now we are hearing only the high vocals from the pre-chorus of “Any Way You Want It,” but Journey’s drum, keyboard, guitar and bass parts are all absent. After a break for more comedic dialogue, the solo Journey vocals continue from 1:15-1:22, but are now blended with a series of trailer triplets and an ominous low bass note ringing out on a synthesizer. This is Journey’s hit, served up remixed and trailerized.

Following an amusing interchange between Gosling and a bobby (we’re in London), we transition at 1:30 into a chorus from “Any Way You Want it,” and similar to the beginning of the trailer, here the chorus vocals play call and response with lines of dialogue from Blunt’s character. At 1:37 on-screen high fives are cleverly synched to a drum fill in the music track, followed by another punchline pause. Soon after, at 2:01, over an orchestrally enhanced rendering of the bridge of “Any Way You Want It” (over the repeated lyric “Hold on”), Gosling’s (two!) machine guns are firing in time with the music. Blunt’s character even appears to be singing along with the song on a microphone at 2:04. The cast is rocking out so hard this is becoming almost a music video!

Throughout, this trailer’s musical remix works by pivoting back and forth between elements of catchy memorable sections of “Any Way You Want It” (including pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge), interspersed with moments of musical silence to leave space for comedic dialogue and standard action trailer musical clichés (trailer triplets, more accents on big drums, suspenseful synths, and industrial risers—listen to 2:10-2:20 for example of this). This trailer’s music is clever, it’s different, it’s hilarious, and I highly enjoyed it.

The Fall Guy staggers into cinemas May 3rd.

— Jack Hui Litster