Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo
Written by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Julia Butters
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of strong violence, and strong language.
Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes
In some theaters July 15, streaming on Netflix July 22

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

Well, they did it. Netflix finally made a movie worthy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They imported Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and the Russo brothers, some of the key architects of The Infinity Saga™, hired Chris Evans, and spent $200 million on a movie without a single memorable action sequence. The formula works! A Robert Ludlum-esque spy thriller that is more interested in dodging offending anyone’s politics than telling a coherent story, The Gray Man is perfectly mediocre entertainment because no single aspect is good enough to recommend. 

Recruited from prison by Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), Six (Ryan Gosling) is a Jason Bourne type for the CIA. A killer trained to handle things that need doing off the books. A new guy, Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page) has taken over the program from Fitzroy and is using a botched job by Six and Agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) as an excuse to clean house. To do so, he employs Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a mercenary drummed out of the CIA because collateral damage isn’t in his vocabulary. Caught in the crossfire is Fitzroy’s niece, Claire (Julia Butters), who is taken hostage to get leverage on her uncle. 

From a plot perspective, The Gray Man manages to walk the fine line between dumb-but-fun and too-dumb-who-cares-about-stakes very well. There’s a lot of contrivances and tropes, but that should be expected in the spy/shoot-em-up genre at this point, and familiarity isn’t a distraction for this kind of comfort watch. Large sections of the movie are extremely engaging, giving Gosling the room to do good character work and Evans a canvas big enough for his loud 70s-style wardrobe and boisterous mannerisms. The movie features all of the globe-hopping plus smaller character moments like Captain America: Civil War, and while it doesn’t have the baked-in appeal of our favorite superheroes, manages to feel like a Marvel movie with a slightly harder edge. 

The Gray Man’s biggest flaw is in its action sequences, however. While quick cutting and digital effects are to be expected at this point, there are at least two major sequences that are so poorly composed they made me check out of the movie entirely until they were over. The first involves a fight on a cargo plane that escalates into a hole in the side of the plane, falling without parachutes and other things we’ve seen before. But every element of the sequence feels sloppily composed, to the point that the hole in the plane seemed to be in an inconsistent location from shot to shot. There is also a shootout in a city square that escalates into a car/train chase that also exposes some sloppy geography. But even worse than that, the entire sequence is composed at the same level of volume. There is no rise and fall, or even real escalation. Everything arrives on the screen at the same loudness level in every sense, so that there is no storytelling within the action itself, there’s no “oh shit” or cheer moment in the sequence at all because it unfolds with the same amount of visual interest as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It makes Shang-Chi’s bus fight from last year look like a Mission: Impossible movie. 

I like spy thrillers and action movies, and I don’t expect a lot of wholly original plots or ideas. I want to see the actors have fun and for some inventive moments. The Gray Man technically delivers, but with so many resources, it does so little that I’ve already started to forget I ever saw it.