L'homme gris

Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is a man serving a lengthy prison sentence for murder when he's approach by CIA Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thorton). Fitzroy impressed by Gentry's lethal skills and lack of familial connections offers him recruitment into the Sierra program, wherein convicted felons agree to work for the CIA as deniable off the books assets who can "operate in the gray" in exchange for commuted sentences, which Gentry accepts taking the designation Sierra Six ("Six" for short). 18 years later Gentry continues to operate for the CIA as the last member of the Sierra program much to the ire of Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page) who has succeeded Fitzroy in position and voices disdain for Fitzroy's tenure including the Sierra program. When an assassination in Bangkok assigned to Six reveals his target was Sierra Four, Four gives Six an encrypted drive that was Carmichael's true objective and this sends Six into the wind. Carmichael seeking to retrieve the drive before it can be decrypted enlists the aid of sociopathic private contractor and former CIA assassin Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to take down Six and retrieve the drive and Hansen issues a bounty on Six that sends every assassin after Six. Additionally Hansen takes hostage Six's now retired mentor Fitzroy as well as Fitzroy's niece Claire (Julia Butters) to ensure Six has no allies.

The Gray Man is an adaptation of the novel of the same name that is the first in a series by author Mark Greaney who first came to prominence as a co-author on several Tom Clancy novels during Clancy's final years. Published in 2009, attempts had been made as far back as 2011 with Brad Pitt initially slated to play the lead only for the project to never come together, and later Charlize Theron entered discussions to play a genderswapped version of The Gray Man but this too never came to pass and Theron instead pursued her adaptation of The Coldest City with Atomic Blonde. The eventually landed at Netflix in June of 2020 with directors Anthony and Joe Russo who'd directed some of the MCUs best regarded films and a budget of $200 million making it the most expensive project to ever be tackled by Netflix. With a well regarded series of books and an A-List team behind and in front of the camera, it's clear Netflix wants this to be a long lasting franchise and given all those solid parts it probably will be, but while the movie is entertaining it's not going to be the replacement for Bond of Mission: Impossible the producers clearly want (yet anyway).

To start off on the best aspects of The Gray Man, the movie delivers everything you hope to see from a big budget directorial effort by the Russo Brothers with the plethora of international locales, epic scope of the action, and thrilling and creative action sequences that wow and dazzle with the technical craft firing on all cylinders. The movie features a great supporting cast with Bond alum Ana de Armas as Dani Miranda a nice Deuteragonist to the movie even if she does feel like she ducks in and out appearing at just the right time after we've lost track of her, Billy Bob Thorton is quite good as Fitzroy and brings his quirky offbeat charisma to the well worn mentor figure as reliable as ever, and Julia Butters is also very good as Fitroy's niece Claire with Fitzroy and Claire nicely positioned for Six as a surrogate family who add emotional weight to the stakes. But hands down the best performance is Chris Evans playing wildly against type as Lloyd Hansen who's about as far from his Captain America persona as you can get without playing Hitler. Hansen is an absolute monster and he clearly loves every minute of it as he revels in sadistic glee at trying to take down Six and alternates his superior smirk with bouts of violent and explosive rage that more often than not have a lethal edge to them as his handler Suzanne played by Jessica Henwick tries in vain to keep tis rabid dog on a leash. The movie's really solid and engaging entertaining with the supporting cast, the action, and the villains elevating the very stock "stolen list" plot that's part and parcel to most spy movies, but the movie doesn't do all that much at making the titular Gray Man himself all that interesting with Six feeling more akin to an audience proxy than a fully fleshed character.

While Gosling is a good actor and effectively plays "strong and silent" type hard edged protagonists as seen in Drive, I never felt like that was a stylistic choice here and more like Gosling's character was just a blank slate. Admittedly they do give Gosling more meat to chew on around the halfway point and even gives him opportunity for some humor, but for a good stretch of the movie Six is very opaque as a character with the nature of who and why he murdered someone not revealed until the beginning of the third act. I think that's what holds this movie back from being on the same level as the best of 007 or Mission: Impossible because it doesn't have a hero as defined as James Bond or Ethan Hunt in their best adventures, I do think however it's better than Quantum of Solace, Spectre, Mission: Impossible II & III, and especially that last Jason Bourne film, but it's still not quite at the level of the best of the comparable spy franchises.

The Gray Man is a solid entry in the genre of spy themed action thrillers and will definitely satisfy the appetites of those waiting for Mission: Impossible to close its book and a new face to say "Bond, James Bond" as it delivers on action, spectacle, and character to solid measure. The movie doesn't make its titular Gray Man the most interesting protagonist with his monosyllabic title and largely stoic delivery in the first half keeping us from getting to know him all that much character wise, but there is solid ground developed if they do decide to pursue a sequel.

I really surprise all negative comments. What do people expect? God Father? Schindler's List every time? They should accept the fact that movies are also made for entartainment and I really enjoyed this one.

Two solid hours of efficient Netflix content is what's on offer here, the action-thriller equivalent of emptiness with nothing but cliche thrillers and mediocre action.

The Gray Man is mostly a collection of tired spy tropes, directed in a muddled and baffling way, that seemingly exists to set up what seems like will be a fairly unimaginative franchise.

The dialogues were cringe and didn't excite at all. The only grace was seeing Ryan Gosling on screen. A big budget film with neither strong screenplay nor efficient set up, The Gray Man feels like a sunk ship with lots of efforts vanishing in vain.

Aside from two hand-to-hand combat scenes, the fights are a dimly-lit mess of quick cuts and bullets flying, something similar to what Michael Bay has done all over these years.

Being a big budget film, The Gray Man is a disappointment to a greater extent, considering that the project had A List actors, but a poor storyline.

My Rating: 5/10.

Rushing from place to place after opening with a colorful killing in Bangkok adds little to get us into the story.

IMHO relying on Ryan Gosling and Ana de Armas proven star qualities fails to substitute a proper establishment of their characters in this movie. Of course as many others I wondered who took all the money Netflix paid for this production but as with so many other big productions today, it's not the point if CGI, actors or travel expenses of the crew were overpriced, the problem lies in the script. The art in script writing is to build up characters and a story. If you don't know why things happen, you don't care and all the surprises and zigzags of the plot loose a lot of their potential.

I think I've come to terms that outside Marvel the Russo brothers are average directors.

We are treated to an above average action thriller with questionable cinematography. Gosling and Evans were good in their roles which was nice to see. Pacing was decent.

The plot and action sequences were very typical and nothing to write about.

Overall, I think Netflix are digging their own grave by splashing so much cash into this movie that I'll probably forget in a week.