As soon as I finished watching The Gray Man last night, I smiled. Because it's a film that is as easy to review as it was easy to throw together. I'm not saying that everything onscreen here is a piece of cake, not when it comes to the technical side of things, but it makes use of a cast with obvious talent to tell a story we've seen 100 times before. So I am going to say that the Russo brothers (Anthony and Joe) felt quite at ease while filming this. I'm sure it also helped that Joe Russo worked on the script with fellow MCU workers Chrisopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Ryan Gosling plays Six, a highly-skilled assassin/agent who was released from prison many years ago by Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) when the latter realised he could make great use of a killer with a strong moral compass. When his latest job doesn't go to plan, Six finds out that his most recent target was Four, another agent like himself, and he was being killed because he had dirt on the new person in charge (Carmichael, played by Regé-Jean Page). Six then becomes a wanted man, and Carmichael has no qualms about using the sociopathic Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to hunt him down. Lloyd won't care about collateral damage, despite the protestations of the woman who is supposed to help oversee this "off the books" op, Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick). A young girl gets caught up in the whole scheme (Fitzroy's niece, Claire, played by Julia Butters), and Six ends up being given some valuable assistance by agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas). That covers pretty much everything, and actually gives you more than you need to know. This is an extended chase movie, and it's one that moves nicely from one set-piece to the next, making the 2+ hour runtime less noticeable than it otherwise would be.
Here are a selection of things I decided were most worthy of mentioning about The Gray Man.
1. Drones are a blight on the action movie landscape, and will do for them what smartphone cameras did for horror movies over the last decade or so.
2. Ryan Gosling continues to be one of my favourite leading men, despite (or maybe because of) playing safely within his seemingly limited range.
3. Chris Evans also continues to be one of my favourite leading men, and we'll all be much better off if he gets to have more entertainingly villainous roles like this one. He's a man who really knows the value of delivering threats with a big smile and a twinkle in his eye.
4. Ana de Armas is a star, and I hope she continues to make hay while the sun shines. I also keep being reminded that there are a number of films from earlier in her career that I need to check out.
5. The Russo brothers CAN shoot action well, but you wouldn't know that from some of the main sequences here. Some of the action is nicely shot, but far too much of it is too choppily edited, too busy with so many elements being thrown around onscreen, and too focused on showcasing the filming style over showcasing the physical work being done by the leads (or their stunt doubles).
You should manage to have fun with The Gray Man. A surprisingly witty script, one that plays to the strengths of the leads, helps enormously, and every main player already mentioned does well in their role. There's also time for some good work from Dhanush (playing an agent named Avik San) and the great Alfre Woodard. It's not very original, which isn't a big problem when it aims to just consistently entertain, but it also never really feels like the stakes are high. Six is an unstoppable machine, even if he manages to maintain that identity with a hell of a lot of help from Miranda, and the last few scenes underline this by being sorely predictable and anti-climactic.
I'd watch another film making use of these characters in this kind of situation, but everyone knows how easily pleased I can be. This was a decent bit of witty action, but it was nothing great. I'm just thankful that the Russo brothers at least cast the best people they could for the main roles.
6/10
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