Miss Flicks

The Gray Man: Film Review

The reviews for The Gray Man have been really mixed and there’s a reason for that – an action thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans with a $200 million budget should have been amazing but it’s simply fine.

The movie, directed by Avengers: Endgame filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, tells the story of Sierra Six (Gosling), an ex-con turned enforcer/assassin who works off the books jobs for the CIA and his boss Denny Carmichael (Rege-Jean Page). When Six retrieves incriminating evidence against Carmichael from one of his targets, the CIA turns on him and sends another private contractor – Lloyd Hansen (Evans) – to hunt him down and retrieve the asset.

The Gray Man should have been so much better than this. With that star-studded cast (also including Ana de Armas and Billy Bob Thornton), a filmmaking team well versed with action and that hefty price tag (it’s Netflix’s most expensive film to date), you can’t help but have high expectations. It should have delivered upon those but it doesn’t – very disappointing. It’s not awful though and although I had a bunch of problems with it, I enjoyed watching this plenty.

The biggest issue is the story and the screenplay. The overarching plot is uninspired and unoriginal and I expected a story with a bit more substance and depth to it but it’s mostly just a thin framework to hang the action scenes on. The dialogue is also very hit and miss. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely – who wrote the last two Avengers movies and all of the Captain Americas – are usually good with zingers and witty banter but it doesn’t always work here. I thought Six’s dialogue was written just fine – perhaps because Gosling delivers it with his deadpan style – but Evans and Page had some major clangers. It’s amusing and made me laugh at times though.

I was absolutely baffled by the poor CGI. How could a movie this expensive look so bad?! I was stunned by how cheap the effects were considering the budget. Why create such elaborate action setpieces if you don’t have the effects budget to make them look remotely realistic? It was quite laughable how fake some of the action looked.

You want clear, well-executed and well-edited action sequences and the film failed on this front often. A substantial chunk of the action was unclear or messy due to poor editing or effects, which shouldn’t happen in an action movie, especially such an expensive one. There were some really good action moments – the earlier parts of the tram sequence and the finale – but quite often I checked out because I wasn’t excited by it. I also need to mention the chaotic drone shots that the Russos sporadically used. They were bizarre and very distracting.

It was lovely to see Gosling back on my screen after four years away and kicking butt as the classic invincible action man. Evans seemed like he had a great time playing the creepy douchebag villain and it was interesting seeing him play someone so different to Captain America, but I didn’t really believe him as the character. De Armas came out of it well and should really be leading her own action movie! There are tons of big names in this but honestly, my favourite actor was Julia Butters as Six’s daughter figure. Her acting seemed the most natural and genuine and I loved the bond between those two.

The Gray Man doesn’t completely suck but there are far too many things wrong with it considering the talent and money involved. If the Russos are hoping to begin a franchise, they should have made a stronger foundation.

On Netflix now