Gray by name and grey by nature
The Gray Man (M, 128 mins) Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★1⁄2
There’s a moment, towards the end of what we may as well refer to as the ‘‘second act’’ of The Gray Man, at which I really hope Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling – and maybe even the Russo brothers – can see the irony.
A Tamil assassin has been dispatched to bring down Gosling’s titular super agent.
But the fighting has left him wearied and beginning to realise that his pay masters are not the good guys in this scenario – and that Gosling and friends are not the people he should be fighting.
‘‘Let’s stop,’’ he says, ‘‘I don’t think I want these people’s money. . . these are not good people.’’
The Russos and Evans have collaborated before, of course, on the all-conquering Marvel movies. The Russos directed Captain America: Civil War and The Winter Soldier, before becoming the highest-grossing film-makers of all time by helming Avengers: Infinity War and End Game.
They are not short of cash, or interesting projects to take on. Which kind of begs the question: why would you bother with a generic and derivative load of rubbish like this?
The Gray Man is the first in a hoped-for franchise based on the books by Mark Greaney. The Gray Man is a lone assassin and a former CIA agent, yadda yadda. All that really matters for our purposes is that he is the latest in an inexhaustible line of that all-time male fantasy figure – the man who will not die.
Court Gentry, aka The Gray Man, like John Wick, Jack Reacher, John Rambo and a hundred others, is a man of few words, hair-raising skills and an unbreakable, but loosely defined moral code.
We know from the moment we meet him that he will still be bloodied, but alive, at the end of the film and that every one of the villains sent to destroy him will be either dead or recruited. And I have no problem with any of that.
The purest expression of the genre in the past decade has been the John Wick franchise – and you would be amazed if you knew how often I watch those movies.
But The Gray Man ain’t no Wick. Despite the hundreds of millions in the budget, the undeniably spectacular action sequences – there’s a fight on a tram here that is absolutely astonishing – there is just no substitute for wit, heart and a sense of humour. All of which The Gray Man is badly lacking.
Listen, for those of you for whom ‘‘great action’’ means a great film, then have at it. But ‘‘great action’’ really is all The Gray Man has going for it.
Even with Evans, Gosling, Ana De Armas and Billy Bob Thornton to deliver the script, it still barely raises a smile and very quickly becomes no more than a series of set pieces. Spectacular, yes, but pointless, witless and repetitive.
As the man said, ‘‘Let’s stop’’.
Now screening in select cinemas and streaming on Netflix.