Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Writers: Joe Russo, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Julia Butters
When a CIA operative who goes by the codename Sierra Six (Gosling) uncovers agency secrets, a bounty is put on his head. Brutal, torture-loving contractor Lloyd Hansen (Evans) is hired to hunt him down, leading to a ruthless global manhunt.
Spy-thriller isn’t the easiest category to play in, not when you’ve got to compete against the death-defying stunts of Mission: Impossible, the legacy of Bond, and the compelling ruggedness of Bourne. The Russo Brothers gave it a red-hot go, plugging the script with big explosions, big names, and big set pieces, but though The Gray Man makes for an entertaining watch, it ultimately fails to truly stand out from the crowd.
After a brief foray into serious drama with their last film Cherry, the directing duo behind the back-to-back box-office successes of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame have returned to big budget cinema with another action-packed affair. The film begins with a bright and colourful bang, and then the bangs and crashes just keep coming; with nine massive action sequences spread across its two hour runtime, The Gray Man is made up of high-octane attention-grabbing moments.
Based on the books by Mark Greaney, it’s a generic but not uninteresting plot line – a good-at-heart assassin finds himself entangled in a web of conspiracies, while a psychotic gun-for-hire is engaged to silence him. It all centres on the chase of a MacGuffin; a USB which conveniently (or inconveniently if you’re the bad guys) contains all the evidence needed to bring the whole web down. Injecting some fun into the proceedings, scriptwriters Markus and McFeely ham up the stereotypes of the genre – instead of directly emulating what has been done before, they opt for a knowing, tongue-in-cheek tone that lightens the mood, and affords distinction from serious heavy-weights like Bond and Mission: Impossible.
That’s not to say it’s all rib-tickling humour – there are a few quippy comebacks and chucklesome comments, but little in the way of laugh-out-loud moments; most of the fun comes purely from Evans chewing up the scenery as he doubles down on his role as the torture-happy baddie Lloyd Hansen. After his long stint as the ever strait-laced good guy Captain America, Evans seems to be loving the chance to play some jerks; ethically devoid and proud of that fact, Lloyd is Evans’ Ransom Drysdale from Knives Out turned up to eleven – he’s basically Ransom if Ransom had access to military grade weaponry.
Evans’ manic, moustachioed Lloyd is balanced by Gosling’s more reserved Six. Six is the reluctant man on a mission; his involvement in the plot a combination of the hand life dealt him, and his choice to actually listen to his moral compass rather than throw it out all together. With Evans and Gosling both sharing the spotlight however, there’s little room devoted to fleshing out the other characters. Ana de Armas’ Dani Miranda has some kick-ass hand-to-hand combat scenes but no real character development. Jessica Henwick’s Suzanne Brewer is also similarly short-changed; her big moment is quickly passed over in the final third of the film. Though both Armas and Henwick work their magic with what the script affords them, their characters are left largely two-dimensional.
The film delights in going over-the-top in every possible way; it’s a pacy watch full of fireworks, bombs, and excessive assholery. The gritty fight sequences are a stand out, and the actors bring a mediocre script home with their punchy performances. On the downside, some of the big-ticket action scenes become overly chaotic and borderline indecipherable at times, and the ending is rushed; a last ditch move made by the baddies is easily resolved a few minutes later, and there are revelations and power plays made late in the game that get glossed over and tied up too quickly.
The Gray Man had a budget to rival its biggest competitors, and it’s easy to see where the money went – with hectic action sequences involving multiple different modes of transport, plus grenades and guns going off every sixty seconds, it’s a circus of splashy stunts and VFX work being performed by an A-list cast. Yet, for all its spectacle, the film is liable to be lost in the sea of cinema; it needed more humour to reign as a comedy, more character development to stand out for its story, and more distinctive set pieces to be remembered for its action. Nevertheless, while not as show-stopping as its competitors, The Gray Man is undeniably entertaining; an explosive, energetic, unapologetically superfluous caper that goes all out in the name of fun.
