"The Gray Man" a middling action-thriller that wastes some impressive stunt work

The Gray Man (2022)

A star-powered, globe-trotting spy action-thriller like “The Gray Man” feels as if directors Anthony and Joe Russo want it to be their Michael Mann film. Whether or not their film actually earns that flattery is another matter, but the Russos’ last non-MCU film, 2021’s “Cherry,” was at least a watchable, boldly stylized mess. This being an adaptation of the first book in a series by Mark Greaney (Tom Clancy’s collaborator during his final books), one can only hope that it’s a more interesting read than watching Netflix’s most expensive release (sorry, “Red Notice”). Somehow, "The Gray Man" manages to be frenetic but more of a slog than a blast. 

Ryan Gosling, one of our finest actors and a magnetic (not to mention gorgeous) presence who makes some challenging career pivots, is wasted here playing a gum-chewing, occasionally smirky but mainly stoic cipher. He’s “the gray man,” a black ops mercenary who was recruited from Florida state prison by CIA handler Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), but he goes by his codename, Sierra Six. After realizing his latest assignment is to take out an innocent fellow agent, Six goes rogue with (of course) an encrypted flash drive full of bad CIA secrets in his hot little hands. The only other person Six can trust is fellow agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas), while his superiors, sniveling Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page) and Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick), have other plans. To retrieve the asset and eliminate Six, Carmichael sends out Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a gleefully psychotic CIA assassin turned gun-for-hire. Lloyd then reels in Six by making it personal and kidnapping Fitzroy’s precocious niece, Claire (Julia Butters), who was once protected by Six. Shootouts, car chases, and explosions ensue, and all for that incriminating McGuffin.

“The Gray Man” constantly rides that line of being a little cheeky, almost self-aware, and then brooding and violent without ever finding a smooth balance between both modes. Just imagine a "Mission: Impossible" or even a "Bourne" movie curdling back and forth into the craziest, most preposterous installment in the "Fast and the Furious" series. Since we’ve generally seen all of this before in other spy thrillers—a “good” assassin caught in a conspiracy and on the run from worse people—the Russos do try to up the ante in the action department (which we will get back to in a minute). But even two of Hollywood’s most attractive leading men and an excellent supporting cast need more than the rote, not-as-cute-as-it-wants-to-be script given to them by Joe Russo and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely. 

The fight choreography and stunt work for the relentless action set-pieces are impressive on their own — when you are actually given time to appreciate any of it in a single frame. The Bangkok-set opener against a fireworks celebration in a club is a thrill, and a two-on-one fight in a hospital between an adversary (Dhanush) versus Six and Dani is well-staged. But then there's a wildly outlandish chase involving a commuter tram crashing into a town square in Prague before devolving into CG-enhanced bombast. Another set-piece with Six throwing punches amidst smoke bombs inside a free-falling cargo plane on fire begins thrillingly before getting cut to shreds and losing most spatial coherence. The film isn’t without some style (cinematographer Stephen F. Window sure likes his drone shots as much as Michael Bay did in the superior "Ambulance"), though several of the action sequences are just cut off at the knees and rendered almost incomprehensible with chaotic edits. 

Chris Evans seems to relish the chance to play a volatile, fingernail-ripping bad guy named Lloyd who can rock form-fitting polos and a “trash stache.” One can't even dissuade Evans from going even more against-type, but more of his glib, mustache-twirling Big Bad quips are followed by groans than the laughs that were intended. For example, “To make an omelet, you have to…kill a few people.” No matter the clunkers he has to sell, Evans seems to be playing in a more unhinged cartoon, like "Shoot 'Em Up," and that might've been more fun. Then there's Ana de Armas, playing Six's all-business ally who just wants to clear her name. Though she does have more screen-time than she did in the latest Bond outing “No Time to Die” and gets in on the action here, Armas gets very little to do character-wise. An overqualified Alfre Woodard gets slightly more character business with a cigarette as the former CIA chief. Julia Butters, the sparky dynamo who held her own opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood,” gets a moment like that with Gosling, but her Claire is pretty much a prop with a pacemaker. Of course, when Gosling and the teenage girl spar, it immediately takes one back to how much fun Gosling was in “The Nice Guys.” 

Blockbuster audiences can be easy, counting on movie stars to just show up, and they'll be satisfied, but we deserve more than the bare minimum. Boilerplate action films should still give us an adrenaline fix and maybe even make us care about what’s happening on screen. “The Gray Man” only makes sure of the former on occasion and, well, forget the latter. A lot of this is empty, increasingly numbing motion with quip machines and chess pieces as people. However, at home on the couch, it might fit the bill for those only craving shootouts and fisticuffs in between the good-looking faces and international locations.

Grade: C

Netflix released “The Gray Man” (129 min.) in select theaters on July 15, 2022, followed by a streaming release on July 22, 2022.