The Gray Man review: A face-off between Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans that you have seen before!

2.5/5

Story:

A psychotic former coworker places a bounty on the death of the most competent assassin in the CIA, whose true identity is unknown after he accidentally reveals dark agency secrets. This triggers a worldwide manhunt by assassins.

Review:

When you hear the budget of the film way before its release, you might want to see how bankable it is to even witness it on the screen. But then again, the film is directed by the Russo Brothers and features Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling in the lead roles, so the reasons are different altogether. But does a great and deadly combination of actors and filmmakers always make the best movie? Sadly, no!

The Gray Man is also a film falling into that category. Having been adapted from author Mark Greaney's novel of the same name, it is the first book to feature Court Gentry, a former CIA agent and freelance assassin known as the Gray Man.

The plot of the book follows Gentry as he travels across Europe to save his handler, Sir Donald Fitzroy, and his family in Normandy, France, from Lloyd, a former CIA officer who is a member of a massive French corporation and who wants to get rid of Gentry so that he can broker a billion-dollar deal for oil interests in Nigeria, whose president wants Gentry dead for the murder of his brother.

The Gray Man makes several course corrections, and the screenplay is adapted by Joe Russo, along with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. But surprisingly, the linear format makes the film have more white noise than any twist you expect to witness.

It gets well established in the beginning that Ryan Gosling plays Sierra Six, a CIA black-ops mercenary forced to flee after learning embarrassing information about the organisation. He is hired by Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) to work for the agency, which he does diligently for 18 years. However, the tables are turned when he becomes the CIA's target for completing a task by his wishes rather than the agency's orders.

Thus, the game begins with Six being on the run, literally hopping from place to place, unleashing his wanderlust in the process. Oh, yes, in the runtime of around two hours, we get a virtual tour of the beautiful world, from Thailand and Turkey to Vienna, Prague, and many more places.

Following him is Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen, a former CIA agent who has been hired by the organisation to kidnap and execute Six. It's just a plain cat-and-mouse chase between two very good-looking men who get into dirty business and are well associated with an agency of national security.

Meanwhile, there's CIA operative Dani Miranda, played by Ana de Armas, who collaborates with Six. The three actors dominate the screen throughout, and very well so.

But it hardly adds any value to the script-to-screen translation, which I have been personally waiting for since it's Russo Brothers.

Whether it was on purpose or not, The Gray Man reminded me of several scenes from Joe Russo's 2020 Netflix release, Extraction. The fight sequences were, of course, unmatchable given that the Chris Hemsworth starrer was directed by Sam Hargrave.

At one point in time, Evans' character, Hansen, even asks how difficult it is to kill somebody, and deservedly so. Gosling as Six escapes from a burning plane, a trapdoor and even gets handcuffed to a seat at a square in Prague. Surrounded by assassins, cops, and all kinds of people with ammo, Six escapes effortlessly with bruises around and fights the next enemy.

But hands down, the best fight sequence in the film features Dhanush, who is named a Lone Wolf and is referred to as a ‘sexy Tamil friend' by Hansen. He is yet another assassin who fights Six and Miranda for information and, with his well-suited look, nails that sequence. But that's about it.

Given that they took an actor of his calibre for a brief role, it seemed like a piece of cake for Dhanush, and of course, he received well-deserved international recognition. However, the character could have been played by anyone; it's not something for which you rope in Dhanush per se.

We know that this could be a franchise, so we can expect more of Dhanush in the coming films. But he deserved a better ending in this film.

The two fight sequences in Dhanush include him getting into hand-to-hand combat with Gosling and Armas. While in another one, a very small but impactful scene features Armas and him strangling each other with a cable wire, and they both show equal power and technique to bring the other one down.

The Gray Man also has stupendous performances by its lead actors, who are pitted against each other amazingly. Evans is a certified sociopath who is sarcastic and maniacal in his words and actions. He addresses people with "sweet" and "affectionate" words such as "pumpkin". At one point, he even refers to Gosling as "Ken Doll" (the role he plays in the upcoming film Barbie).

Evans did unleash his negative side in the film, and it's indeed a fun treat, barring the moustache, which is like to the face and on purpose, of course.

On the other hand, Gosling's potential felt explored in a minimalistic manner and felt like this actor could do anything and everything apart from having a perfect and charming face.

Armas is too good for the role given to her. Her face bangs might be a distraction for us as a viewer, as she has a lot of fashion sequences. But she shuns them like it's just normal and gets on to the business of kicking some ass left, right, and centre.

The major disappointment of The Gray Man is the storyline, which is eventually about rescuing a girl and somehow getting into a sympathetic mode. Given that the novel had some other story could have been a much better plotline than making it a rescue story. Another reference from Extraction!

The course correction gets haywire then and there, making the film take the plunge into becoming one of the most anticlimactic films.

Even the sequences between Evans and Gosling when they come face-to-face are random and not something that will hype the excitement one might have. Adding to it is the set-up, which will blatantly remind you of the third task from the Triwizard Cup from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where they are thrown in a maze to find the trophy.

The Gray Man is lost in translation and might make you enjoy the moment only to not have any recall value.

Verdict:

The Gray Man has many enjoyable moments just drawn from the scenes of different films, including iconic and easily forgettable ones. In particular, having a plane sequence and making it catch fire and eventually crash is done and oh so dusted! Despite having all of the meaty content padded up within a budget of around $200 million, nothing saves the film.