Film Review: "The Gray Man" (2022).

From Netflix and the directors of Avengers: Endgame comes The Gray Man. This action thriller film directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, adapted by the Russo Brothers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Mark Greaney. The Gray Man is CIA operative Court Gentry, aka, Sierra Six. Plucked from a federal penitentiary and recruited by his handler, Donald Fitzroy, Gentry was once a highly-skilled, Agency-sanctioned merchant of death. But now the tables have turned and Six is the target, hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen, a former cohort at the CIA, who will stop at nothing to take him out. Agent Dani Miranda has his back. He’ll need it.

In January 2011, the project was first set up at New Regency, with James Gray set to direct the film adaptation of Greaney's 2009 novel penned by Adam Cozad and Brad Pitt attached to star. However, by October 2015, Gray and Pitt were no longer involved with the film. Christopher McQuarrie and Charlize Theron then entered talks to direct and star in a genderswapped version of the film at Sony Pictures, with the Russo Brothers, Markus and McFeely penning the adaptation. By July 2020, Anna Gregory, Charles Leavitt, Rhett Reese, Joe Schrapnel, and Paul Wernick were hired to perform rewrites. By mid March 2021, Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Wagner Moura, Julia Butters, Dhanush, Alfre Woodard, Billy Bob Thornton, Callan Mulvey, DeObia Oparei, Robert Kazinsky, and Shea Whigham were cast. At the same time, with a budget of $200 million, principal photography commenced and wrapped in late July. Filming took place in Prague, Czech Republic; Château de Chantilly, France; Baku, Azerbaijan; Vienna, Austria; Long Beach, California, USA; and Marietta, Georgia.

The film stars Gosling, Evans, de Armas, Henwick, Page, Moura, Butters, Dhanush, Woodard, Thornton, Mulvey, Oparei, Kazinsky, and Whigham. When you're watching a star-studded, action-packed cast shoot and fight their way through bad guys and tense scenarios, it's difficult to have too many complaints. Both Gosling and Evans' leading charismas are enough to keep you glued to this (occasionally problematic) thrill ride.

With its fidgety two-hour runtime and the nonstop procession of gunfire and explosions, the film grows tedious, largely as a fault of the screenplay. One does have to watch a lot of the stuntwork through a kind of veil of ineffective camera set-ups and poor visual storytelling. The film won't revolutionize the action genre, but it shows that leaving the ones who get the punches in charge of the action is a good idea. It's an action thriller that operates with the conventional mechanisms of the genre and does not have the slightest intention of bringing some strength to the plot of the mercenary trapped by his past. The film is bang on with its explosions, gunfights, hand-to-hand combats and chases, all lensed without taking the foot off the pedal. The rest is strictly middling. It's a mediocre and humorless action, suspense thriller with suffocating dialog and ham-fisted metaphors, however it's immensely popular with viewers.

Simon says The Gray Man receives:

Also, see my review for Cherry.