Review: The Gray Man (2022)

There’s a scene about midway through Joe and Anthony Russo’s The Gray Man in which Chris Evans’ psychopathic intellgience operator, Lloyd Hansen, tortures Billy Bob Thornton’s retired handler, Fitzroy, by peeling his fingernails off with a plier. The moment recalls similar torture scenes in past films such as Syriana, but the key difference here is we only see the before and after: the pliers applied to the fingernail and the detached, bloody fingernail on a nearby table. It seems that the Russos, who have a taste for violent, intense action films, still cannot escape the four-quadrant approach of their Avengers films, and so will not show Evans, erstwhile Captain America, ripping fingernails off in agonizing detail. Thus, The Gray Man, which is their attempt at a down-and-dirty action film, ultimately pulls its punches.

To be gracious, I see the appeal in the film’s overall approach. It’s a globe-spanning action film, with scenes in Bangkok, Prague, Vienna, and Croatia, among other exotic locales—which is especially appealing coming after two years of limited travel during the pandemic. It’s obviously big budget—reportedly $200 million—which shows up not only in the variety of locations, but also in the big-name cast, which includes Chris Evans, Billy Bob Thornton, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Wagner Moura, Alfre Woodard, and, its leading man, Ryan Gosling.

In particular, it’s a pleasure to see Gosling on the big screen again—or should I say small screen this being a Netflix film? The enigmatic leading man had taken a hiatus since starring in Damien Chazelle’s excellent Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man, in 2018. The Gray Man is his first film in four years and it’s fun to watch Gosling’s Sierra Six (his code name; we never learn his real name) weasel his way around beautiful foreign cities, dispatch CIA contractors, and flirt with Ana de Armas’s CIA agent, Dani Miranda, in the midst of gun battles. A line that is particularly amusing when delivered by Rosling: “No one throws a loaded gun.”

As his code name suggests, Gosling’s character is the titular “gray man,” an off-the-books CIA asset who will kill whoever he’s told to and never leave a paper trail. We learn a tidbit about his backstory and why he ended up in prison as a 15-year old, but we don’t get much more than Gosling being Gosling. Casting him as an emotional enigma counts as typecasting at this point, but I’m not complaining. The man wears mysterious charisma well.

However, the film does struggle to impress when it’s not following Gosling engaged in close-quarters combat. The Russos are action junkies and aspiring action movie auteurs. They are capable of crafting entertaining action scenes, albeit not overly impressive ones. They brought some action panache to television episodes of Community, and injected some rough-and-tumble fisticuffs into the MCU in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They also produced 2020’s Chris Hemsworth Netflix action film, Extraction, which had some good action in the midst of its gritty theatrics. (Side note: are the Russos adamant on making a Netflix action film starring each actor from The Avengers? So far, that’s two down….)

In spite of their modestly successful efforts in action filmmaking, they are not maestros of stunt choreography like John Wick’s Chad Stahelski and David Leitch; their action sequences have too much haphazard shaky cam and the choreography lacks the balletic grace of John Wick. Nor do they have the blunt-force impact of a Michael Bay or Paul Greengrass; they lack the mastery of montage and smash cuts of these directors, opting for more conventional action coverage. They are capable action directors, but not top level, and by no means the new action auteurs, so the action scenes throughout The Gray Man are watchable, but nothing to write home about. 

The film is best when characters are fighting one-on-one, or when there’s some colour and impressive locations on the screen. For instance, the opening fight scene on New Year’s Eve in Bangkok plays with the reds, yellows, and oranges of fireworks in inventive ways. Their filmmaking is at its worst when it goes big and the CGI starts to buckle under the weight of the scale. A fight scene aboard a tram in Prague makes the goofy, climactic chase of last year’s F9: The Fast Saga seem rather credible in retrospect.

And when there aren’t guns blasting or characters beating down on each other, the film’s not all that interesting. The Russos’ version of character flavour is Whedonesque banter and cringeworthy bad guy lines such as “If you wanna make an omelette, you gotta kill some people,” which Chris Evans struggles with. In fact, Evans struggles throughout. He’s a great Captain America, but whenever he plays a clever bastard, as he does here, he can seem more annoying than amusing. Add that to the film’s paint-by-numbers depiction of psychopathy—Jessica Henwick calling Lloyd a “sociopath” recalls some unfortunate line readings from The Room—and you’ve got a truly weak bad guy, not just a forgettable one.

The film’s quiet character moments aren’t much better, as the main emotional thrust of the film relies on Gosling bonding with Julie Butters’ Claire, Fitzroy’s young niece. His protectiveness of her dovetails with some trauma from his upbringing, which plays into the familiar modern playset of male action heroes working out their trauma through violence. It’s rather dull, although you don’t blame Gosling, or Butters, who continues to impress after making such a mark as the young actress sharing a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. It’s simplified emotional layering to try to make us care about the cat and mouse between Gosling and Evans, and pretty standard in these types of movies nowadays.

The Gray Man is surely better than many of the other $200-million would-be blockbusters that Netflix has produced. I watched it, while I wouldn’t watch Red Notice even if I were paid to. It’s nice to see Gosling again. It’s appealing to watch globetrotting action. But surely, with this budget and this cast, we can expect a better script and some filmmaking with a bit more verve. Watching two guys throw each other around a French castle is fun, but there’s a way to make such a thing art. With The Gray Man, it’s just modestly diverting content.

5 out of 10

The Gray Man (2022, USA)

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo; written by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely, based on the novel by Mark Greaney; starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Wagner Moura, Julia Butters, Dhanush, Alfre Woodard, Billy Bob Thornton.

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