Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Gray Man’ on Netflix, in Which Ryan Gosling Duels Chris Evans in a Mayhem-Filled Action Spectacle

In a world where “Wick” has become a verb – the capitalized version of it, anyway – it can be a verb in its lowercase form, of course, but less frequently than its use as a noun – comes The Gray Man, a Very Expensive Netflix Action Movie starring Ryan Gosling as a class-A top-shelf mercenary headshotter who gets his 1099s from the CIA. Notable: Actually probably more than notable, but a legit plea to put your eyeballs on this thing: Marvel Cinematic Universe guys Joe and Anthony Russo direct – their second post-MCU outing after 2021 creative flop Cherry – reuniting with their Captain from America, Chris Evans, who plays the most hateable bad guy in recent memory. Ana de Armas also turns up in a key supporting role, and joins everyone as they roll around while things explode and bullets and witty quips fly and people get punched and kicked a lot. So is this type of over-the-top ultra-scale violence viable, streaming at home in 2022? Let’s find out.

THE GRAY MAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: He’s known only as Six (Gosling). The CIA plucked him out of prison and turned him into a remorseless assassin. We first see him in action in BANGKOK, one of a comical number of location subtitles, some of which have sub-sub-sub-subtitles, e.g., TWO YEARS EARLIER, LONDON, CIA STATION, OFFICE OF MARGARET CAHILL. That might get the biggest laugh in the movie, in spite of Evans playing a sociopathic sleaze named Lloyd Hansen, who wears no socks, ugly-ass expensive loafers, tight short-sleeved sweaters and a reprehensible mustache. One glance at his arrogant sneer and you just want to eliminate him from the gene pool. With a dozen-megaton H-bomb. From orbit. (Say it with me: “It’s the only way to be sure.”) Lloyd is Six’s antagonist, and he’s so disgusting, you can’t help but laugh. But the subtitles? Way sillier.

I digress. In BANGKOK, Six is assigned by his CIA superiors Carmichael (Rege-Jean Page) and Suzanne (Jessica Henwick) to, of course, kill a guy. Agent Dani Miranda (de Armas) is his helper. The target ends up being another member of the same elite cadre of slayers-for-hire that Six belongs to. That doesn’t sit well with Six, but too late, the guy tells him this in the space between being fatally stabbed and his journey to the Great Unknown. Around the dead guy’s neck is an encrypted microchip. Yes, you may sigh now. Will all the characters chase this microchip for the next two hours, even though the movie isn’t really about the microchip at all? You bet. The next subtitle should read MACGUFFIN CITY.

There are developments. Oh boy, are there developments. The microchip has incriminating stuff on it that Carmichael would rather not see get out there. So he sics Lloyd on Six. The conflict implicates Six’s mentor, Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), and his niece (Julia Butters), who has the misfortune of having a pacemaker and dead parents and being friends with Six, therefore making her eminently kidnappable by Lloyd. So that’s exactly what happens. He also takes a pair of pliers to Fitzroy’s fingernails. But Fitzroy has such confidence in his protege, he warns Lloyd, “Six’s will is preternatural compared to yours,” and Lloyd replies, “Don’t say ‘preternatural’ to me. It’s an asshole word.” Just how preternatural Six’s will is will be revealed in the remaining 175,000 minutes of this movie, which I shall not spoil here.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Russos are trying to bullseye the midpoint of a cinematic triangle whose sides consist of Bay, Greengrass and Stahelski. So think The Island, The Bourne Ultimatum and John Wick merged with the CGI-scaped action the Russos employed in the MCU (most effectively in Captain America: The Winter Soldier).

Performance Worth Watching: Despite Gosling playing a Man Who Don’t Talk Much and who chews on a toothpick (say it with me: “I drive”), which is one of my favorite modern cinema archetypes, Evans is the only one who’s doing anything sort of original. He’s so entertaining playing a loathsome shitheel. He even calls Six a “Ken doll,” which is the kind of meta-joke that makes you want to H-bomb him from orbit twice (is the only way to surely be sure).

Memorable Dialogue: One for Evans: “You wanna make an omelet, you gotta kill some people.”

And one for Gosling: “When you say things like ‘chop your head off,’ it makes you sound untrustworthy.”

Sex and Skin: None. This movie is so violent, I’m convinced that a single buttcheek would’ve tipped it from PG-13 to R.

Our Take: With its glib tone and breakneck pace, The Gray Man is quite obviously not to be taken seriously, but is it parody or satire? It seems to border on one or the other. That’s not a flattering question to ask, so maybe we should go simpler: Are we not entertained? Sure, at least for the first half, when the action blends smoothly with the rollout of colorful characters, and the snappy dialogue routinely tickles the giggle-cockles. I was delighted to see a first-act action set piece play out on an airplane, so I could make a reference to fuselage, which is one of my all-time favorite words; alas, its hectic editing and voluminous use of artificial CG imagery dampened my enjoyment. And yet, boy, did the fuselage fly!

The second half of the movie, however, tends to forget the first half was witty, and compensates by leaning heavily into the pandemonium. There’s an amusingly ludicrous and lengthy action sequence set in Prague that layers in nifty little details among the cavalcade of explosions and gunfire and racing vehicles (a bit where Six is handcuffed to a bench and still somehow manages to not get shot nudges you in the ribs until you chuckle), but the subsequent displays of mayhem tend to flag under their own weight, offering diminishing returns and greater lapses in logic. The score gets hyperactive, the stream of endlessly slaughterable grunt-soldier bad guys is utterly inexhaustible and it kind of falls apart for the ending. No not that ending, the second or third ending, none of which are really all that satisfying, not like how the initial hour hit the sweet spot between laughs and thrills.

I liked how the Russos toy with tropes, layering the story with comical riffs on character types: the child in danger, the brooding hero, the middle-management sex pest, the psycho who’ll grab an ear and dig in and twist. I didn’t like how it gave the incomparable AdA very little to do beyond her role as a plot device (she enjoyed a far more dynamic and memorable action sequence during her brief appearance in No Time to Die), and how the film can be a little too CG-flattened, too hacked up for barbeque in the editing room to be exceptional. The Gray Man doesn’t have much in the way of gray matter, and almost proudly has nothing to say about anything important. As popcorn fodder, it’s perfectly fine. But as far as elevating disposable entertainment to a new level of reptile-brain stimulation, well, it ain’t quite there.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Gray Man offers a few more pleasures than deficiencies, and might be worth watching just for Evans’ deliriously icky performance.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

Stream The Gray Man on Netflix