REVIEW: The Gray Man’s Story Gets Lost in All the Flash and Bang
Based on the book of the same name by Mark Greaney, The Gray Man follows Court Gentry, also know as “Six” or “The Gray Man” (Ryan Gosling), a member of the CIA’s elite Sierra Six program. This program takes people who are facing life in prison and trains them to take on the most dangerous missions and never be caught. To essentially be ghosts and live a life in the shadows. When Gentry is tasked with eliminating a fellow member of the Sierra Six Program, he is given some incriminating information that could change the Sierra Six program, and the CIA forever. To prevent this information from getting out, the CIA places a target on Gentry’s head and sends the sadistic Llyod Hansen (Chris Evans) to eliminate him. When Hansen’s tactics to lure Gentry out don’t work, he opts to take those closest to Gentry hostage. Now, Gentry must team with his on/off partner, Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) to stop Hansen before it is too late.
As someone who read the first book in The Gray Man series, I wasn’t holding my breath with this movie and I’m glad I didn’t. Directed and written by Joe and Anthony Russo, the movie is loosely based off the book, and when I say loosely I mean not even close. There are a number of characters that were added/missing from the story and plot points completely changed, including the reason why Llyod and his team were going after Gentry in the first place. These changes did nothing to enhance the story and the brothers would have been better off sticking with the original story. It would have created a meatier story with more fleshed out characters.
Speaking of characters, unfortunately, a number of characters could have been left out of the story all together and nothing about the movie would have changed. The even sadder part about this statement is that most of these characters were the female characters. de Armas’ Miranda, Jessica Henwick’s Suzanne Brewer, and Alfre Woodard’s Margaret Cahill were just means to an end. The Russo Brothers took no opportunity to flesh out of these characters and, instead of making them integral parts of the story, these ladies felt more like they were just there to fill the female quota. At the end of the day, it was a shame because all three of the ladies could have, and should have, made major impacts on the story.
Gosling leads the story as the sarcastic and dangerous Gentry, but it takes a little too long for the audience to warm to him as a deadly spy. It really isn’t until the end of the story where I started to believe that Gosling could pull off this role. He is a little too stiff and monotoned throughout most of the film for people to find him believable as a spy. Evans’ takes on the villain Lloyd, and like Gosling, it took too long for me to believe him in the role. This may be because the writers never fully fleshed out this character, so you never truly buy in to why he is the evil, crazed individual.
Billy Bob Thornton plays Gentry’s handler, Donald Fitzroy, and was extremely underused in this story. His character played a much bigger part in the books, so I am not sure why he took such a backseat in this story, but it was the wrong move. Regé-Jean Page steps in as the man running the Sierra Six program, Denny Carmichael and does a decent job. He falls into the villain role pretty easily but, once again, his character is not developed enough for the audience to truly buy into his performance as well.
With an over $200 million budget, too much of the money went to the the flash and bang and not enough went to its characters and the actual story. Thankfully, the movie is being released on Netflix so if you have a subscription and really want to watch it you can. However, for those who do not have a subscription, don’t worry, you’re not missing anything.
Grace: C-