OnScreen Review: "The Gray Man"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
A lot of digital ink has been spilled over Netflix desperately wanting a hit movie on their hands that rivals the big blockbusters in the theaters. There were hopes that The Gray Man might be it, and Netflix has certainly invested a lot of money into it and it has some really good, quality elements that could make for a hit, in front of and behind the camera. Unfortunately for Netflix, this is not the project they’ve been waiting for all along.
Like I said, The Gray Man has some really good, quality elements to it. After making a smaller film with a significantly smaller budget with 2021’s Cherry, this is the first big budget directorial effort for the Russo brothers since a little Marvel movie called Avengers: Endgame. It features a script that Joe Russo co-wrote with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, two scribes who also contributed significantly to the MCU for most of the last decade, and it’s an adaptation of a pre-existing series of spy novels. And it’s bolstered by a cavalcade of stars, some of whom are familiar to MCU fans and other Netflix properties: Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Billy Bob Thornton, Julia Butters, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Alfre Woodard, and newcomer Dhanush (a star in India, apparently).
The story is about an assassin named Six (Gosling) who does his work for a clandestine government program. Recruited for the top-secret program out of prison by an agent named Fitzroy (Thornton), Six spends nearly 20 years doing the dirty work of the CIA, until a job with fellow agent Dani Miranda (de Armas) goes wrong and gets him sideways with his superiors back home, Carmichael (Page) and Samantha Brewer (Henwick). They call in Lloyd Hansen (Evans), a sociopathic mercenary from outside of the Agency to track down and eliminate Six and retrieve and incriminating item in his possession. Hansen leans on Fitzroy and his granddaughter Claire (Butters) as leverage to draw out Six.
Personally, I’m a big fan of spy thrillers and espionage movies and there are some classic elements of the genre deployed here. The cat and mouse game between Six and Hansen has its enjoyable moments. In the opening scene where Fitzroy meets him in prison, they establish Six as someone who is glib and quipy with a deadpan manner, something that is easily in Gosling’s wheelhouse. He also has great chemistry with Julia Butters’ teen Claire, which is no surprise to anyone who saw here scene-stealing performance in One Upon a Time in Hollywood. His chemistry with de Armas is also good, but not as strong.
Evans is really chewing the scenery throughout the entire film. Evans, most popularly known for playing Captain America, the morally upright superhero of the MCU, seems to relish getting to play the villain and go against type for a change, much like he did in Knives Out. It’s nearly done to the point of excess, but it works overall.
There are also some quality action sequences. Near the opening there is a great fight that takes place during a New Year’s Eve celebration amidst fireworks being shot off all around the two men fighting. There’s also a solid one in an airplane that felt like it belonged in the Fast & Furious franchise. The showcase sequence of the movie, though, is a shootout and chase through the streets of Prague.
But on the whole, this is a messy movie. While Page and Henwick seem like fine actors, they seem ill cast for their roles, Page in particular, as agency people in their late 20s or early 30s that are so high up in the organization so early in their careers. Page disappears for a long stretch of time. Also, while some of the action is good, there are some genuinely head-scratching moments including one fight sequence at a hospital that abruptly ends for no good reason other than forced banter between Gosling and de Armas. During the extended climactic action of the final act, two characters square off until one just decides he is done fighting and walks away, giving the other person exactly what they wanted, and completely negating their entire exchange of fists and feet and takedowns.
The Gray Man has some enjoyable pieces, but there is not enough in it to elevate it above anything other than a middling action movie. It reminded me of a rich man’s version of a late 80s or early 90s action movie, like Arnold’s Commando, or a Jean Claude Van Damme movie when they splurged for a quality villain. Given the source material and the way it ends things, Netflix clearly has plans to make this a franchise. Let’s just say there is room for improvement.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars