No movie ever really needs a budget of $200 million, even with the few exceptions there are whether it’s Marvel, DC or even a Star Wars property. Be that as it may, it’s huge risk to invest that kind of money on any original movie or something that’s based on an unknown property. With the case of Netflix, with all the expensive products they’ve already put from all their hit series or in the case for some of their bigger profiled films, The Gray Man clocks in as Netflix’s most expensive movie to date circling around exactly $200 million. There’s no telling how much Netflix spent on the marketing for The Gray Man, and we all know how bad Netflix is at promoting their own movies, but this is something seems like a financial death wish. The “kinda” good news is that The Gray Man, and a lot of other upcoming Netflix movies, will be getting a limited theatrical release before it officially drops on the streaming service next weekend on the 22nd of July. We’ll see how that actually bodes for the film in the coming days.
Nevertheless, The Gray Man sure has a lot of good will going for it. You’ve got two hot directors with the Russo brothers, led by two of Hollywood’s biggest actors in Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans and solid source material in the hopes that this could turn out to be a franchise starter for Netflix. Regardless of the budget, this is something to get excited about. The unfortunate part of The Gray Man is that it never reaches the level of Mission Impossible, John Wick or even one of the Bourne movies with Matt Damon. At the same time, this is a perfectly serviceable action movie with some TERRIFIC action set pieces, great wit and bad assery from Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling. It could have used a bit of a polish with one particular action set piece and some more utilization with Ana de Armas’ character and the Billy Bob Thornton’s character for that matter, The Gray Man doesn’t leave us too disappointed but more in the vein of a shoulder shrug.
Based on the 2009 novel from author Mark Greaney, The Gray Man follows an agent that goes by the name Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling), a CIA black ops mercenary who’s on a mission in Europe to uncover dark secrets of the current agency he’s working for. What follows is a cat and mouse chase between Six and one of his ex-colleague, Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans).
The real problem with The Gray Man is the actual story. It’s not that the story is convoluted, boring or terrible, it’s just bland and pretty non engaging. It’s structure is a carbon copy of almost any other action movie that’s ever made in Hollywood. There’s our main character who’s a trained and skilled assassin for the CIA or any other government organization. They have to find a certain object that the agent needs to reveals certain secrets that are crucial to the narrative. Our main character is then being hunted by another assassin who he used to work with but now has gone rogue. The originality of The Gray Man is sadly not present at all and with the budget of $200 million, there’s no excuse for your movie to look poor for visually unpleasing. The overall action (which we’ll get into later on the positive side) is to be left with satisfaction, with the exception of one sequence that involved our main character falling out of a plane. We won’t get into narrative detail, but it’s by far the worst set piece in the entire film because of how jarring it actually is.
The other separate issue with The Gray Man is the utilization of the supporting characters, or lack thereof. It’s safe to say that Ana de Armas can do about no wrong at this point in her career. Aside from how stunning she is, ever since her breakthrough performance in Blade Runner 2049, she’s been consistently knocking it out the park with her roles in Knives Out and the more recent No Time to Die. She hardly got anything to do in this movie, aside from a few scenes of he looking great while kicking some ass. Same goes for Billy Bob Thornton. A great and respected talent, but was written very generically but also felt like your typical standard supporting character in an action movie.
Despite all the negatives that this movie suffers from, The Gray Man does provide some solid action entertainment. Other than the horrific sequence involving Ryan Gosling falling out of a plane, the rest of the action felt much more competently filmed and much more easier to digest. The opening fight sequence in Bangkok, the intense street shootout in Prague all the way the terrific showdown between Gosling and Evans was solid stuff. Ryan Gosling is one of the best actors today and he fully commands the screen with toughness, brute force and a domineering presence. We all love Chris Evans as the protective and dedicated Captain America, but ever since his role in Knives Out, Evans plays the role of dick quite well. Not only is his character a maculated jerk in The Gray Man, he’s having the time of his life in this movie. He’s a witty, charming and likable villain who still shows the tendencies of cocky bully from high school. The duo between Gosling and Evans is a great aspect of this movie and it’s really made the focus on this more engaging than the actual story itself.
Had The Gray Man been more focused on making a more engaging story, more polished up action and better usages of the supporting characters, we’re talking about one of the best action movies of the year. There are some very good things in The Gray Man that save it from being an absolute dumpster fire. However, we have to look at its flaws and come clean that it’s no where near as good as it really wanted be. Not to say the Russo brothers, outside of the MCU, have made abysmal films. While some were mixed on their latest film Cherry, The Gray Man might be an improvement for some people but they still need to win people over with something else because this film probably won’t do it.
My grade for The Gray Man: C
Zane's take at the Cinema's 