The Gray Man delivers a fast paced, action filled, blast of a movie, despite its flaws.
Delivering the climatic chapter in cinema’s most successful cinematic universe, while at the same time breaking all kinds of box offices records is certain to place your name in the history books, and with that lay all eyes on you.
The Russo Brothers know this all too well, after delivering the epic Avengers: Endgame in 2019 everyone has had their eyes on the duo awaiting what they’d deliver next, particularly given their focus on projects outside Kevin Feige’s comic-book kingdom. Things have been rocky to say the least, while focusing more on producing; delivering projects like 21 Bridges, Extraction, and this year’s fan favorite Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, the duo’s last directorial effort was the much maligned Cherry, bringing fans to question if the Russos could deliver as storytellers outside the MCU.
Well, The Gray Man is here and while it won’t reinvent the wheel on cinema or even the spy thriller genre, it’s on aiming for that. What it is aiming for it, mostly, achieves while displaying directorial qualities reminiscent of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and with that it seems The Russos have gotten their Groove back.
The film follows the CIA’s most skilled mercenary, known only as Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) after he accidentally uncovers dark agency secrets and becomes a primary target and is hunted around the world by psychopathic former colleague Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) and international assassins.
What can be gathered from this film’s brief synopsis is its structural familiarity, which is one of the film’s biggest faults. While based on a book of the same name by Mark Greaney, the script by Marcus and McFeely (Infinity War, Endgame) somewhat misses that character centric individuality that has elevated their past works, the film contains simple versions of characters we’ve seen before, character dynamics we’re all too familiar with within this genre, impeding the film from becoming a true standout with the likes of the John Wick franchise or even the Mission: Impossible movies.
It can come across as a bit one note, depending on its endlessly talented cast to elevate the material on the page, but elevate it they do; in execution the film does carry countless spy tropes, but in a lot of ways the film carries a sense of self-awareness, almost as if it’s gathering all the best tropes that made fans of the genre fall in love with it in the first place, it’s a tricky balance to strike, but what ends up being a tropy movie, it ultimately results in nothing but reverence for that tropyness.
When it comes to bringing the pages to life; The Russos finds their distinct blockbuster filmmaking style in aggressive, ever-escalating action. There is a phenomenal sense of pace, tension and escalation throughout the film that never lets up with stellar sound design throughout, so while this is a Netflix film it is playing in select theaters, so if you can, experience this caper on the big screen and have a blast.
Somewhat against the grain, the action-set pieces go from bombastic plane crashes to city-wide manhunts, to a house invasion and eventually a mano-a-mano fight in a small maze. This is what seems to be the Russo’s ace, starting out visually over-the-top and big while escalating back on the narrative sense to deliver more intimate, personal settings and character-driven conflicts. This gives way for more introspective moments which they absolutely nail, delivering a surprisingly compelling Bond between young Claire (Julia Butters) and Six.
Butters continues to smash it, stealing every scene she has on camera, after doing the same in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, this young lady proves once more how she is an acting sensation, with this heart-warming presence that slowly but surely chips away at Six’s hard exterior to reveal the obscured humanity he’s hidden away from years of working for the agency.
Gosling carries with grit the stoic toughness that has made him the superstar he is today and such a great natural fit for a role such as this. While the film could’ve dove a bit further into his backstory, with what feels like unclear and honestly futile flashbacks that come on screen seemingly randomly, Gosling’s understated charm and sardonic humor are the absolute vitality that make him so endlessly watchable as a performer.
This is particularly apparent in this role, however, as he can clearly deliver the machine-like assassin on a killing spree with excellent hand-to-hand fight choreography akin to the violence and exhilaration seen in the Bourne franchise, as well as deliver the man made into product of the agency slowly finding his humanity through moving bonds created with the aforementioned Claire.
Gosling also shares the bulk of his scenes with the absolute badass Dani (Ana de Armas) an agent who finds herself accosted by her own agency due to Six’s actions yet sees the morality in the mission he has set himself out to accomplish.
Armas continues to excel in the genre, delivering once more a dedicated performance that allows her to flex her action star muscles, stealing the show with a commanding screen presence and highlighting her action star status in the film’s best hand-to-hand fight sequence as the Ballerina-to-be and Gosling scrap against Indian superstar Dhanush in a hospital that only opens the door to Ana eventually having nothing short of show-stealing moments in the 3rd act.
Gosling’s subtle character work is only highlighted by how beautifully combated it is by the absolutely wild and hilarious Chris Evans, who delivers some of the best line-reading of the year as the murderous, yet outrageously funny, Loyd Hansen, in every conceivable way the absolute opposite of Six, yet nevertheless capable. Hansen relishes in being evil, and clearly so does Evans, whose joy in playing a bad guy (who loves being bad) is visible through the screen, as every time Loyd steps into frame the energy significantly picks up.
While Six gets down and dirty, doing the work himself in regards to assassinations, Hansen is more so the kind of guy who does the work AFTER the target is captured. Hansen has the contacts and sends what seems to be every assassin in the world after Six, enjoying the carnage and chaos unleashed from a distance. Evans displays true flamboyance as this mean-spirited psychopath on a relentless manhunt, like a caged animal set loose to finally go out and play, but for Loyd playing means blood and a lot of bullets.
Gosling and Evans are absolute opposites in regards to their characters but their chemistry is nevertheless electrifying on screen, despite not having many scenes on screen together, it’s a joy when the two finally find themselves in the same frame, whether it is holding a conversation, teasing one another or coming to aggressive blows.
Lastly, amidst the scripts familiarity the film is somewhat haunted by its PG-13 rating, where an R-rating would’ve better served the films sense of grit and the violence displayed, it could’ve enhanced the difference in methodologies of our leads Six in Hansen, but particularly Hansen would’ve benefitted from the violence he so enjoys dishing out to be fully illustrated on screen in more bloody visuals.
What is seen feels violent and painful, just not to brutal degrees, it’s once more an issue that simply impedes this (hopeful) franchise to join the heights of genre standouts such as John Wick or The Raid.
Overall, The Russo Brothers deliver a gripping spy caper with bombastic, ever-escalating action set-pieces in The Gray Man. Gosling’s stoic charm is perfectly balanced by Chris Evans devilish flamboyance with performances from Ana de Armas and Julia Butters being total scene stealers.
The action is kick-ass, the pace adrenaline-fueled, and The Gray Man truly is a blast from start to finish.
GRADE: B+
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About The Gray Man
Ryan Gosling is THE GRAY MAN and Chris Evans is his psychopathic adversary in the Netflix/AGBO spy thriller directed by Anthony and Joe Russo – available globally July 22 on Netflix.
Also starring Ana de Armas, with Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Henwick, Dhanush, Wagner Moura and Alfre Woodard. Based on the novel The Gray Man by Mark Greaney, the screenplay is by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
THE GRAY MAN is CIA operative Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling), aka, Sierra Six. Plucked from a federal penitentiary and recruited by his handler, Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), Gentry was once a highly-skilled, Agency-sanctioned merchant of death. But now the tables have turned and Six is the target, hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a former cohort at the CIA, who will stop at nothing to take him out. Agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) has his back. He’ll need it.
