The Gray Man

Ryan Gosling stars as a convicted murder turned killer for the CIA in a film with so much excessive overblown action in would make Arnold Schwarzenegger blush. The crux of the story involves Six's (Gosling) villainous boss (Regé-Jean Page) putting out a hit on Six after proof of his corruption falls into the agent's hands. Every action taken by Page's character is the wrong one, including alienating another agent (Ana de Armas) enough to have her join Six's cause of seeing the proof exposed and rescuing Six's mentor (Billy Bob Thornton) and niece (Julia Butters) from the sociopath (Chris Evans) hired to find Six.

The movie is so ridiculous we can't take events seriously, yet that seems to be what the Russos want us to do. The script steals from movies like Commando, but neither the story or action build to satisfying conclusion. Instead we get a series of over-the-top action scenes without a nod, smirk, or twinkle.

Oh, and we get some graphic torture and Six's dark past mixed in as well. Joy.

The Gray Man is a throwaway action flick that doesn't know it's a throwaway action flick. A bit more humor, a few less lulls between action sequences, action sequences that aren't so large the movie uses up its credibility halfway through, and bad guys who aren't constantly making decisions against their own interests (how did these folks ever achieve any sort of power?) would all have helped.

The movie is a mixed bag, but there is some fun to be had in the explosions and chaos. Gosling is good enough in the role you could see it being reprised in a possible sequel. Ana de Armas gets to kick some ass, although not as stylishly or witty as her recent stint as a Bond Girl, and Chris Evans is having fun as the sociopathic Lloyd. The rest of the cast is solid enough, if not particularly well showcased by the script, but the attempt to juice up standard action tale on steroids making it both big and louder and at the same time more realistic and dramatic is a failed experiment.

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• Title: The Gray Man
• IMDb: link