The Gray Man: Still in Action Mode, Ex-Avengers Directors Deliver a Lower Tier John Wick
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-minus
Like Taika Waititi, the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, seemingly came to the Marvel Cinematic Universe from left field.
There was nothing in their comedic work in films like You, Me and Dupree or series like Arrested Development and Community to suggest they had two Captain Americas and two Avengers movies in them.
Having left that behind, you might think they’d shift gears and tell a moving story about two Amish kids coming of age, or something.
Ryan Gosling is a man with a number, Six, in The Gray Man.
Nah, just kidding. They’re staying in their big-budget lane with the blindingly explosive, noisy and derivative The Gray Man, a breathless action film minus the superheroes (save for the hero’s ability to take a bullet or a knife wound with aplomb).
It moves, it’s entertaining, Ryan Gosling is as buff as he’s ever been and all-in as an action star. And who knew all it would take was a porn ‘stache to turn Chris Evans from Captain America into a psycho mercenary?
It’s just that almost nothing happens in The Gray Man that doesn’t remind you of something better. Gosling is Six, a former prisoner who was sprung by an Agency chief (Billy Bob Thornton) to become part of a CIA “ghost squad” whose members have no identity and can take out ostensible bad guys with impunity.
All that changes, however, when Six stumbles on evidence of corruption in the Agency, and the call goes out to mercenary assassins throughout the world to take him out for cash.
I liked that premise better when the protagonist was named John Wick. Although, Six isn’t killing hordes of fellow agents and privateers to avenge a dog. Here, he’s on the trail of a girl kidnapped by a deranged bad guy (the aforementioned Evans as the torture-obsessed Lloyd Hansen) – a la Man on Fire or Taken.
The breakneck pace of this covert operation gone gonzo partly serves to distract you from thoughts like that. It also makes me wonder yet again about the business model of Netflix. The money is on the screen, as they say, with giant block letters informing you of where in the world they are invoking carnage. LONDON… CHIANG MAI… AZERBAIJAN… PRAGUE…
It’s the kind of globe-trotting destruction you see in a Mission Impossible, James Bond, Jason Bourne or even later Fast and Furious movies.
But this obvious nine-figure enterprise – tailored to look best on the biggest screen you can find – is getting a week in theatres starting Friday. Next week, you’ll be able to see it at home on Netflix.
It may be that the pace was a little much for the Russos as well, at least in the perfunctory moments where they seem to be trying to make an actual movie as well as an action movie. There is an attempt to give Six a psychological underpinning for how he ended up in jail (defending his brother from his murderously abusive father), and they return to it in flashbacks every so often if they want to add a bit of dimension to the latest martial arts showdown, knife fight or gun battle.
But mostly the characters operate in their own lane. Ana de Armas plays a decent bad-ass as Six’s mostly-in-the-dark field partner. Tamil film star Dhanush is a bad-guy hired killer, who suddenly isn’t for the most prosaic of reasons. Julia Butters plays the imperiled precocious child with a quirk of playing old 45s on her record player (Silverbird by ex Paul Revere & the Raiders’ Mark Lindsay gets multiple plays).
And Evans, who seems like the only actor having fun in this movie, is just plain despicable and over-the-top. Who needs a reason?
The Gray Man. Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. Starring Ryan Gosling, Billy Bob Thornton and Ana de Armas. Opens in theatres, Friday, July 15. Begins showing on Netflix, Friday, July 22.