This review is utterly jam-packed with spoilers
To paraphrase the old 10cc record ‘Dreadlock Holiday’…
I say:
I don't like action movies (Oh no!)
I love them
I don't like action movies (No no!)
I love them
And love makes you do crazy things. Like spending two hours watching a 20 million dollar movie that’s so derivative I can’t decide if it’s a basketful of genre Easter eggs or a complicated four-dimensional joke. Luckily, I’m the sort of nerd who’ll pan for gold in any action movie, be it an interesting character, a novel piece of tradecraft, a gadget or a stunt. The Gray Man has enough of these to amuse me, like a cat offered a cardboard box, but does the rest hold together?
Spoiler: No, it does not.
If I were given twenty million big ones, I like to think I’d come up with something more original than this: the titular Gray Man – codename Sierra Six – is serving a life sentence for murdering his abusive father. Then he’s offered his freedom, in exchange for joining a top secret CIA assassination program. Why a child murderer might catch the eye of the CIA isn’t explained, presumably it’s because it’s Ryan Gosling. Which sets the tone for the rest of the piece. Sierra Six, of course, goes on to become the Agency’s most lethal killer (etc).
It also strikes me The Gray Man suffers not only from genre fatigue but from an identity crisis – it can’t decide if it’s a cartoony pastiche or a serious espionage thriller. I’m sure a defter director could have done something better with the source material, Guy Ritchie for example. And I don’t care what anyone says, The Man from UNCLE was terrific. To give you an example of what I mean by a cartoony action movie, look at Atomic Blonde, which I enjoyed a great deal (indeed, it was adapted from a comic book).
Another criticism of the movie, released in cinemas a week before it was streamed on Netflix, is it doesn’t look great on a big screen. This elicits a shrug from me, as I was never going to watch it at the cinema, nor am I an expert on cinematography. It looked fine on my hefty HD telly, with the scenes set in Bangkok having a cool, neon cyberpunk-ish 80s feel to them.
I’m more concerned with characters and casting. Ryan Gosling stars as Sierra Six with his usual deadpan Gosling-ness. What can I say of his performance? Ryan Gosling always looks bored. Driver. Bladerunner 2049. The annoying musical where he loafs about with Emma Stone. He gives the impression he’d rather be at the dentist, or watching a Ryan Gosling movie.
Gosling / Sierra Six becomes involved in the usual Bourne-like CIA assassin folderol – he compromises a securocrat, apparently played by a good-looking bloke from ‘Bridgerton’ (which I’ve never seen). Bridgerton guy is a perfectly solid villain, mainly because he’s the sort of hyper-ambitious overachiever we’ve all met at work and wanted to punch in the throat. Anyhow, he predictably wants Sierra Six dead, issuing orders from the standard-issue CIA ops room full of earnest-looking young people staring at screens. Not that Sierra Six ever looks even remotely troubled, he’s a portrait of ennui even as he jumps out of a burning transport plane without a parachute.
Then there’s a side plot involving Sierra Six’s old handler’s niece, who is of course In Peril. The ex-handler’s played by Billy Bob Thornton, who’s utterly wasted here. Billy Bob’s usually the acting equivalent of self-raising flour, he makes anything he’s in rise above itself (look at Armageddon, dammit, he’s brilliant) but The Gray Man squanders him. He also looks like Colonel Saunders, as if at any moment he’s going to pull a bucket of KFC instead of a pistol out of his jacket.
The movie also does nothing much with Ana De Armas, turning in a performance not a million miles different from her cameo in No Time To Die. Except in NTTD she’s effervescent, graceful and beguiling. Instead, The Gray Man gives De Armas a Sky News Beth Rigby haircut and not much else apart from suffering CIA passive-aggressive HR moments and shooting people.
Ana De Armas doing her Beth Rigby cosplay. Love the suit, though. Beth take note.
Okay, so far so bad. Surely, though, you can’t spend 20 million dollars (try saying this in your head, Doctor Evil style) and not do something right? The fact so many critics hated this movie is, to me, a challenge. I doubt I’m the only civilian not inside the media inclined to look on a film favourably if certain critics stab it to death. For example, if The Guardian hates a film, I’m probably gonna like it.
Which brings me to Chris Evans, who plays the villainous Lloyd Hansen, hired to hunt down Sierra Six. Evans plays Hansen as a moustache-twirling douchebag and appears to be thoroughly enjoying himself (the scene where he plays with Billy Bob’s ears as a piece of improvised torture made me chuckle). I think Evans has little choice but to go down this route, cursed as he is with stellar good looks. Dazzlingly handsome, Evans could only be a Hollywood movie star, a cross between Errol Flynn and The Princess Bride-era Carey Elwes. So, like his turn in Knives Out (also with Ana De Armas) he’s obliged to ham it up. I don’t mean this pejoratively, as he absolutely nails it. In any case, he’s the best thing in the movie, a pantomime villain with an army of elite commando henchmen magically capable of traversing the globe in minutes.
Speaking of which, The Gray Man doesn’t do suspension of disbelief. This is another problem which would’ve been solved if they’d gone down the lighter, quasi-parody route. At times, when Lloyd camps it up as he yanks out someone’s fingernails or wires their face to a car battery, it feels like the Russo brothers are trying to make a gritty Austin Powers movie. With a straight face. 20 Meeeelion dollars, right?
The action sequences are okay, but again nothing genuinely original. Even the central action moment, a tram and car chase through Prague, reminds me of an old episode of Strikeback (which did far more on a comparatively miniscule budget). Even the obligatory climactic hero versus villain duel feels tired.
In essence, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with The Gray Man as a Saturday night beer and pizza movie. The problem is, with this cast and budget, I was expecting something more Michelin star. Like the title, the premise behind the movie feels… grey.
I award The Gray Man a very generous 6/10, mainly because of Chris Evans. And if you enjoyed, hated or disagreed with my review, please let me know.
One thing came to mind when I watched this film, Pound Shop Jason Bourne
Alright then, trying to be serious...the entertainment industry seems hell-bent on churning out mind-numbingly stupid content. But there's something to be said for a *invoking movie-critic hyperbole* nonstop thrill-ride of heroic dering-do. Yeah, the movie was dumb, but nonetheless enjoyable in spite of that. Sort of like my dog. He's literally - not figuratively - the dumbest dog I've ever encountered, and yet he can't help but be a lovable little idiot. He's not supposed to split atoms. He's supposed to do dumb shit we can laugh at so we don't focus on the humdrum banality which is modern middle-class married life. I'd actually watch the movie again, just like I wouldn't hesitate to adopt another dog, even knowing he was the canine equivalent of the whoever green-lights $20M production budgets inside Netflix.