The Gray Man

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.

It doesn't look like a cheap movie, but no chance that this movie had over two hundred million dollars in budget. It's a decent and enjoyable movie but it shouldn't cost that much. Spend your money on better things instead of this easily consumed but entertaining film. Companies like Netflix and Disney keep producing mediocre content when they have insane budgets. Do they spend every penny on the CGI and hire children to do the writing? The writing in Gray Man is not bad, but maybe we should expect more when they have an almost unlimited budget?

The action is good some of the time. The actors did a great job and it looks legit when they fight. Some action scenes use way too much greenscreen which is a shame. I thought we had learned by now after Tom Cruise's success. But of course it is much easier to do some of these sequences in the computer (and safer).

There are many location titles in this movie. Probably too many, but at least it becomes clear where we are. The environments are very nice, but the absolute best thing is neither the environments nor Ana De Armas, it's Ryan Gosling. Jesus, he's in phenomenal shape. Has he put on some weight for Barbie? It's great that he's back on the big screen. WFun to see him in an action role similar to James Bond or John Wick, and he does a great job. He's charismatic, good-looking, funny and has perfect comedic timing. Without Gosling this movie would've been a 5/10.

Ana De Armas is also great in the film. She has proven to be fierce in both this and James Bond. Soon we will surely see her starring in her own action film.

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 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.

Certainly not a bad movie, and the action is actually quite enjoyable.. or the movie is at least a lot more enjoyable than the attempts at movies that Netflix has done recently.

It is however a bit of a basic "Jason Bourne" meets "John wick" meets "James Bond" type story - filled with cliche's and the dialogue and acting are a bit bland, and honestly, with the well known names in this movie, it probably should have been a bit better.

It was nice seeing Gosling in this roll - But he probably pulled of the "I don't really care anymore" attitude a bit too much, meaning there isn't any excitement.

Evans was enjoyable. Or at least nice to see a different part of him after seeing him for 10+ years in the Marvel universe.

However, I'm worried that they might be trying to set up a franchise here, which might not be a good thing. James Bond can do that, Jason Bourne did it, John wick certainly did it. But there isn't enough in this movie to set up the franchise.. here it's a "meh" film where the "meh" attempted to hide in a whole heap of action scenes.. granted. Some of those action scenes are pretty good. But it's still surrounded by "meh"