There’s a beautiful moment in the new action-comedy The Fall Guy when the stuntman Colt Seavers, played by Ryan Gosling, gets reacquainted with a former colleague, a stunt dog named Jean-Claude. As soon as the situation turns rough and the villains must be chased down, Seavers takes off yelling, “Come on, Jean-Claude!” and the dog is at his side in an instant, racing toward danger with a look of such heroic intensity, every action film star should aspire to it.

Generally, Jean-Claude only responds to commands in French, a funny recurring bit. But he’ll make an exception for his old friend Colt.

This Colt is based on the title character in the old 1980s TV show The Fall Guy starring Lee Majors, who appears here in a cameo. He’s a stuntman who gets sidelined by a devastating career injury and ends his promising relationship with camera operator Jody Moreno, played by Emily Blunt, because if he can’t hurl himself fearlessly into physical danger, he doesn’t feel he has anything to offer.