The Fall Guy, now on Peacock, enters the era of the ‘perfect couch movie’

The Scapegoat hit theaters at the start of the 2024 summer season and was met with a resounding success. Its opening week box office numbers were lower than expected. Its second week numbers dropped even further, as it was overtaken by another entry in the Planet of the Apes extended universe. A few weeks later, Whirlwinds came out and wiped away any remnants of the buzz the film had left behind. The general consensus, at least from the perspective of the studios and trade publications, was that the film was a flop. Which is a shame, because The Scapegoat is great. But there is good news.

Luckily, now that summer is over and these stories are starting to run out of steam, you have a second chance to watch this film with fresh eyes. The film debuted in August on Peacock, the same streaming platform you may have been using to watch the Olympics. And if you’re still subscribed there—whether you signed up for a year to get a good deal or you’ve found other things worth watching—every episode of both Colombo And Murder: Life on the Street If you’re on Peacock, FYI — or you simply forgot to cancel and still have a month with an active account, keep the following in mind: The Scapegoat is a perfect movie to watch on the couch on an autumn Friday evening.

Admittedly, this isn’t what anyone involved had in mind when they made this film, which had the potential to be a huge summer hit. The pieces also seemed to be falling into place: Ryan Gosling was fresh off the Barbie mania, Emily Blunt doing Emily Blunt things, a recognizable bit of nostalgia to center it all, etc. It had jokes and heart and a lot of fun whippass stunts – the film was directed by former Hollywood stuntman and John Wick co-director David Leitch, and doubles as a love song to the entire profession. It danced an extremely watchable line between rom-com and nostalgic action comedy that I’m not sure the film’s marketing reflected prior to release, which might be part of the problem.

I mean, it’s everything you could want from a summer blockbuster. Think about it:

– Ryan Gosling at his most relentlessly charming as Colt, a wisecracking stuntman who gets into trouble when things go wrong on set and reluctantly tries to rebuild his life.

– Emily Blunt as a former camerawoman and first-time director named Jody who has a fraught love story with Colt and a legitimate bone to pick, but also a lot of fun ways to do it.

– Hannah Waddingham from Ted Lasso like a sly Hollywood agent who stabs people in the back and smiles at them.

– A dead body and a murder plot that unfolds and unfolds, revealing itself as the film develops.

— A sweet love story that plays out like a cute romantic comedy, interspersed with chases and action scenes where everything gets out of hand.

— A karaoke scene featuring a banger of a Phil Collins song that somehow made me cry and cheer at the same time.

—A satisfying conclusion where the bad guys are thwarted and the good guys succeed (spoilers, I think, but come on).

What more could you want from a film to watch on a cold weekend night, when the sun sets between 7 and 8 pm? It’s delightful.

Which, again, makes the missed projections a disappointment. But that’s also what makes it such a perfect couch movie. I don’t mean that in a dismissive way. There’s value in a couch movie, the kind of film you put on out of curiosity and end up getting sucked in and ordering a pizza to eat when you’re done. There are even a few classics that fall into that category. Many of them used to air on weekends on TBS or TNT in the days before streaming. The Fugitive is a great movie to watch on the couch. My cousin Vinny is perhaps the best couch movie ever made. More recently, The Accountant has become a classic, so much so that a sequel is now in the works, almost ten years after the first part was released. This is mainly because the film got a boost after its theatrical release.

The Scapegoat has a similar appeal. It may take a different route to get to the same destination, but it’s definitely that kind of movie. My Cousin Vinny with explosions. I’m not sure I can give a movie a higher compliment than this.

(I know this may feel like I’m giving you a hard sales pitch here. I am, if I’m being honest. I think part of the problem is that I’m still upset about The nice guys(Another underrated Ryan Gosling movie that failed to make the box office bang. God, I love that movie. So does almost everyone I convince to see it. I don’t know why this keeps happening to me. And, uh, Ryan Gosling too. I think about it a lot — too much, some might say — and the best answers I’ve come up with are: First, people are consciously or unconsciously punishing Ryan Gosling for being funny, attractive, and talented, in a way that feels a little bit like a personal attack on those of us who would settle for any of those three; and second, Ryan Gosling movies with the word “guy” or “guys” in the title were cursed by a witch years ago and no one has figured out how to undo her dark magic.)

The main lesson I can take from this is that I truly believe you will enjoy it. The Scapegoat if you give it a shot on a night or weekend afternoon in the near future. It works as a feel-good action movie. It works as a date movie. It just works in general, regardless of the numbers people tried to tell you about it when it came out. You don’t have to care about what those guys say anyway. You’re just looking for a good movie to watch from the comfort of your living room. And if you can do that by logging into a streaming service that you’ve already paid for to watch the world’s best athletes compete in the hopes of winning a precious metal medal, well, that’s just a little thing called value.

The Scapegoat is now streaming on Peacock.