This week one of my most anticipated films of the year, The Gray Man drops on Netflix but I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen just a couple days ago. How was the movie? Did the movie live up to the hype? Let’s get started!
NOTE: This movie is based on a book and I haven’t read the book, so I went into this movie only knowing the plot based on the trailers for the movie.
The Good:
It’s been documented and reported that this movie is the most expensive Netflix original movie ever made. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the most expensive streaming service movie of all time. But Netflix wrote The Russo Brothers a check of $200 million and told them to go nuts with it, and they did this. This is a big and slickly produced action spy film, where you get these big epic action set pieces with Ryan Gosling fighting people in planes or on a train. And it just helps that The Russo Brothers know how to direct big budgeted action movies like this because they spent about seven years of their career directing big budgeted action movies, with charismatic movie stars participating in these big action sequences.
From there you have to talk about the cast and in the lead you have Ryan Gosling as this asset for the CIA and he’s great in the lead of a movie like this. He can deliver all of the one liners and be believable in the action scenes, and he does have this nice relationship with a young girl in the movie that did work for me. Then you have Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen, the main villain of the movie and it’s just so fun to see Chris Evans be a villain. Because the character that he’s most known for, and will forever be known for is this good guy that follows the rules and is America’s hero. With this movie you have Evans playing this psychopath of a character that is wonderfully over the top in scenes and still menacing. But honestly everybody in here delivers a solid performance, there were no weak points in the movie for me.
And I touched on this earlier, but there is plenty of action through-out the movie to keep you entertained and invested. And they really went for it, they delivered some big action set pieces that were shot very well. The big stand out for me was the train action sequence in Prague. It was shown through-out the trailer for the movie and it was really cool. The way they have Ryan Gosling use the environment around him is really clever, or using windows to see the reflection of a guy to shoot him is really cool. But you also do get plenty of hand to hand combat in this movie and it was really cool and shot in a nice way, and you can see everything that is happening.
Finally, this is a movie that is very easy to consume and watch. It’s not a big investment, the movie is only 2 hours and 2 minutes long which is refreshing because so many movies these days are like 2 ½ hours long or longer so the fact that it’s a short runtime is nice and refreshing. But even then it feels like the plot for a Jason Bourne movie mixed with the tone and vibe of a Mission Impossible movie.
The Bad:
And this very much a genre movie, what I mean by that is if you’ve seen a movie like this then you’ve seen this movie. You know exactly which characters are going to get killed off and when, you know how the movie is going to end and how certain story elements are going to wrap up. So this isn’t an original movie by any means, and that might bother other people more than it bothered me but it did hold the movie back. And it felt like there were times when the movies could have added an extra twist or turn here or there, but didn’t and went a bit too safe with the plot.
Also through-out the movie there were several drone shots and I don’t know if they were needed for the movie, they more so distracted me from what was taking place. It felt like they did it because it’s become a bit of a popular trend and it works in some movies, but I don’t think it works here all that well. So whenever it happened, I was wondering why it was there and not being glad it was there.
Finally, besides Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans’ characters all of the other characters felt a bit generic to me. Like Ana de Armas is one of my favorite actresses (and my celebrity crush) so I was very excited to hear that she was going to be in this movie, and while she’s great in the movie I don’t know if her character was the best. That’s kind of the problem when it comes to the supporting characters. They got good actors but had them do nothing interesting.
Final Thoughts: Overall, The Gray Man largely delivered what I wanted it to be. It's a big and slickly produced action movie that has fun actors and enjoyable action all through-out the movie. Ryan Gosling and Chirs Evans steal the show and help make the movie what it is. But when it comes to the predictability, weird cinematography, and lackluster side character it didn’t thrive. So all in all, I don’t know if the theater is the right direction to go but since it is free on Netflix I’d go check it out.
The Score: 8.3/10 (B)
Comments