'The Gray Man' Review
Netflix's $200 million plea to its wavering subscribers.
The Gray Man - 2022 - Directed by the Russo Brothers - Action - PG-13 - 2h 2m
Netflix hasn’t burned down yet, but it’s certainly starting to smoke. With a dwindling subscriber base and massive lay offs, Netflix is in flail-mode, throwing a giant pile of $200 million onto the smoldering embers. The end result is The Gray Man. A star-studded, mega-budget, corporate maneuver to stay relevant in the fragmented streaming wars. It’s not a coincidence they brought in the Russo Brothers, who directed Marvel’s biggest and best films (Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Netflix, like every other studio, desperately wants their own version of the MCU. And every studio, besides Marvel, has failed.
Yet they’re boldly doubling down—burning more money with a confirmed sequel and a spin-off—hoping they’ll come out on top. But to build a proper franchise you need at least one of the following: an intriguing character, a fascinating world, or a great story. The Gray Man has none of these things.
Ryan Gosling plays an uber-cool, criminal-turned-assassin codenamed Sierra Six. He never flinches. He loves gum. And he has some daddy issues that are awkwardly duct-taped onto the film with three very brief flashbacks. That’s the only characterization he’ll get. Lacking the charm of James Bond and the raw urgency of Jason Bourne, Ryan Gosling’s Six is a vacuum of emotion. Anything that’s thrown at him gets filtered through his nonchalant attitude. Even after jumping off a crashing tram and landing onto a moving car, he stands up, has no reaction, then just casually walks away.
Untouchable heroes are not uncommon in the action genre, but great action films find a way to make them interesting. John Wick at this point is an immortal god, but he still takes the dangers he’s in seriously. It also helps that Keanu Reeves is dedicated to doing his own stunts, and they’re filmed in a way so you can clearly see the choreography. There isn’t that “wow” factor in The Gray Man. The action scenes are cut quickly, with lots of close-ups—save for a couple of stand-out fights involving a mysterious assassin named Lone Wolf. The bigger set pieces also have a distracting plaster of CGI laid on top, unravelling the thrill of destruction and making the $200 million budget feel like a sham.
The curious thing is that there is great talent involved in the film. The Russo Brothers have worked on interesting things beyond Marvel films, including directing episodes of Arrested Development and Community. They also produced Everything Everywhere All At Once. So they’re definitely comedy-loving movie nerds, and The Gray Man is in line with their sensibilities. But their breezy style reads more as superficiality here, with a plastic Hollywood sheen that’s hard to get past. It’s filled with very pretty people doing very gritty things, and there’s never a complete buy-in to the universe.
As it stands, it’s neither a good movie or a bad one. It wades in that murky area in between—a passable Sunday afternoon entertainment. It certainly doesn’t have enough juice to carry a franchise, no matter how badly Netflix wants to will that into existence. If good films manage to come out of all the corporate strategizing, I’ll eat my words. But for now, The Gray Man is as colorless as the title suggests.
The Gray Man is streaming on Netflix.
Love your editing analysis and the resulting failed film franchise from this Netflix movie! I recently added this to my watch list on the platform but I might skip over it at this point haha
As always, your review is as witty as it is insightful — very!