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It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

FALLGUY is a cheap and dreadful indie drama that feels like it was made by somebody trying to be the next Hitchcock. It's a classic wronged man premise in which a teenager stumbles upon a car accident one night and is soon involved in a plot in which he gets accused of murder and must fight to clear his name. It's a gloomy story with very little in the way of life or effort, mainly consisting of shady characters hanging around in shady locations. The dialogue sounds very creaky to the modern ear.

This extremely low budget thriller combines elements of 'M' and the Famous Five as the combined forces of a criminal syndicate aided by a corrupt chief of detectives squabble among each other and prove incapable of eliminating one kid who stumbles across a bungled attempt to eliminate a hood who looks remarkably like William Bendix.The only names in the credits I recognised were cameraman Vilis Lapenieks, responsible for the slick location photography, and composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava (who provides an extremely noisy jazz score), both of whom remained busy in films for a good many more years.

While driving home one night, Ed Dugan spots a car accident. When he goes to check up on the driver, the badly injured driver pulls a gun on him. He forces Dugan to drive him to local doctor Don Alderette, where he dies, after accusing the doctor of double-crossing him. Dugan is taken into custody by police chief Louis Gartner, but when he realizes Gartner is trying to use him as a fall guy by faking an accident, Dugan manages to escape. Soon Dugan finds out that Alderette, Gartner and local newspaper owner George Mitchell are the main guys behind a local crime syndicate. There really isn't much to say. Most of the principal cast & crew members have a handful of credits on here if that, and it shows. Aside from the nicely done opening credits, obviously inspired by Saul Bass's work, and the 'hip' jazzy score the movie feels amateurish on almost every level. One-time actress Madeline Frances as the doctor's daughter is a welcome breath of fresh air, I actually enjoyed her performance. Then again, she had very little competition here, when at times some of the actors seem to have trouble remembering their lines. I can forgive a lot of stuff for these low/no-budget movies. But there's just too much that needs forgiving here. The movie takes itself way too serious, which is its biggest crime. 'Fallguy' tries too hard to be better than it is. It's probably for the best that director Donn Harling produced and directed only one movie. Avoid. 4/10

A teenager becomes the FALLGUY when he speeds away from a malt shop in his hot rod and sees an accident happen on the road ahead. He stops to help but the car wreck was actually a syndicate hit and because the police chief, a prominent doctor, and the city editor are all crooked, they plan to smear the kid in the papers, have him arrested for murder, then shoot him when he tries to "escape". No good deed goes unpunished, indeed. Like FEAR NO MORE (another film in SWV's "Weird Noir" DVD six-pack), the break-neck speed of FALLGUY precludes any pondering of possible plot holes and it's kind of exciting in a cheap-jack way, from the PSYCHO-esque opening credits to the corny conclusion. The body count's high with almost everyone either dead or wounded at the end and as another IMDb reviewer so succinctly puts it, I "couldn't take my eyes off it".