THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
With every curve ball thrown at us, it’s not too shocking to notice how crazily eventful our lives really are.
PLOT
Based on the titular novel by Mark Greaney, The Gray Man follows assassin Courtland Gentry aka Sierra Six, who was recruited by senior CIA official Donald Fitzroy. 18 years after being recruited, he is sent with fellow agent Dani Miranda assassinate a target suspected of selling national security secrets in Bangkok during a Songkran festival. Unable to do the job stealthily, he tries to attack his target directly. He does mortally wound him but before dying, the target reveals himself to be Sierra Four (Callan Mulvey) giving him an encrypted drive that reveals the corruption of CIA official Denny Carmichael. Because Carmichael was elusive about the mission’s purpose, Six would refuse to surrender the drive and go on the run. As he sends the drive to his former handler Margaret Cahill (Alfre Woodard), he calls for the now retired Donald to extracted. This would lead to Carmichael and his subordinate Suzanne Brewer to recruit ex-CIA turned mercenary Lloyd Hansen to hunt Six down. He gets the upper hand by kidnapping Donald’s niece Claire and keeping her hostage in Croatia, forcing the veteran to approve of Six’s murder during the extraction. With the Sierra agent surviving, he heads to Vienna to find Claire’s pacemaker via serial number. He gets help from Laszlo Sosa (Wagner Moura), who would quickly betray him due to Lloyd putting a bounty on him for mercs and assassins to collect. Six does encounter Lloyd himself, but gets rescued by Dani who intends to bring him with the intent of salvaging her career, after the Bangkok mission went awry. He convinces her to take him to Prague to meet up with Margaret whose decrypted the drive. When they meet up with her, she reveals that Carmichael’s extent of corruption is on behalf of a mysterious shadow government. Just upon this revelation, Lloyd would send more assassins after them. Margaret would sacrifice herself to buy time for Six and Dani. Six does get briefly captured in between the chase, but Dani is able to save him again. Away from Lloyd and the police, they go to a hospital and track down Claire’s pacemaker. However, another mercenary named Avik San aka The Lone Wolf (Dhanush) takes the drive from them after taking them both down. He does deliver the drive to Lloyd, but Six & Dani still track down Lloyd’s base thanks to following the pacemaker. Dani would distract Lloyd’s mercs to give Six time to free Claire and Donald. But when her uncle gets wounded upon fleeing, he would sacrifice himself to protect her. Miranda would fight the Lone Wolf, but despite losing, he surrenders the drive, claiming to be tired of Lloyd’s lack of morals. The escape gets halted when Lloyd captures Claire again and lures Six into a hedge maze. Both men would fight but before Six could finish his enemy, Brewer would shoot Lloyd down. She would explain her intent to pin Carmichael’s actions on him as an act of leverage. She vows to protect Claire as long as Six stays in the CIA. 2 weeks after this, Six & Dani would co-operate in the story, resulting in no action being taken against Carmichael (who would destroy the drive once getting it). Despite Dani getting exonerated, she vows we to go against Carmichael if Claire is ever harmed. The film would end with Six breaking from custody and freeing Claire from being held at a secret location.
THOUGHTS
Everyone had high expectations for the next thing to be helmed by Anthony & Joe Russo after the success they made with four films for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the different qualities between Extraction and Cherry, we accepted history cannot always repeat itself. This film is nowhere near the quality of their past success, but did not have to be that to be entertaining. This was jam packed with wild ass action sequences and neither really disappointed. From each standoff to each chase, I was hooked and anticipated for what would happen next. When you're feeling like that, that is enough to enjoy a movie in general. Had they not been well edited by Jeff Groth and Pietro Scalia, I would've been more judgmental about it. What I got out of it the most was it's core theme to never doubt yourself when your actions are meant with good intentions. If everything you do is from the heart, you shouldn't be looked at differently for it. Ryan Gosling was able to capture that in the role of Sierra Six. He was a guy who doubted if he did right by defending his brother from their abusive father. It took longer than it should have been for someone to look at the situation in his perspective and give him a chance to continue doing right by others. He never asked questions as an agent because he was certain he was nowhere near the wrong. Once he saw right through Carmichael's lies, he knew something had to be done. He would've not even gotten his second chance to live a brave life had it not been for the one guy who respected his actions. Billy Bob Thornton still keeps me invested in the mentor role of Donald. He created the Sierra program because he is a believer in second chances and when it came to Six, he knew he deserved it the most. He put it to such good use to the point he would have his back more than either would prepare for as he would basically become family the moment he met Claire. The young Julia Butters also gives a standout performance for making one who is headstrong more than people think. She may have a heart defect, hence the pacemaker, but every time she talks to someone, she doesn't let that define her. Six admired that about her and she admired him in return when proving his selflessness to protect her. There may be other threats out there to worry about, but as long as she is safe, Six has nothing else to fear. While he gained an unlikely family, he also gained an unlikely friend. Ana de Armas makes Dani another standout figure she is a fellow good willed person who respects her job so much she can't imagine life without it. When Six's personal mission became a detour, she knew she had to trust a guy who shares common morality more than what she identified as personal value. She ended up caring about the guy so much, she shared the compassion to protect Claire by the end of it which I'm sure she will if the going gets rough. With protagonists being built with courageousness, it's a given to have villains that are bad to the bone. Regé-Jean Page and Jessica Henwick gave their own takes on being power hungry manipulators in their respected roles of Carmichael and Brewer, but the true scene stealer is going to be Chris Evans as Lloyd. From beginning to end, the actor owned it in making this character as sociopathic as everyone describes him to be, due to being a sociopathic who ain't afraid to not hold back and relish on the pain he causes. For a guy that was so dominant in the field, it was easy to see him as an immovable object, which would make Six an irresistible force. Whoever was pulling Carmichael's strings, they should more afraid than the CIA is after making an enemy out of the central protagonist. I enjoyed myself when checking this out, but it never excused the issues I quickly caught onto. Going from the top, I find it a bit confusing for Suzanne to claim Six was the only one available for the mission? That shouldn’t be a possibility for any agency to lack resources like that. And why was there a camera in Six’s room? The last thing the CIA needs is proof of one of their authorized assassinations. I know it’s in Six’s character to be a rebel, but if he didn’t want to take the flash drive, I don’t see the point of him not giving it to Carmichael. Yes this inadvertently becomes the right thing, but he could’ve avoided running into a load of trouble just by giving up something he didn’t understand yet. And did Carmichael have to arrange Dani to take a different plane? He could’ve just ordered her original plane to get rerouted. Speaking of which, that plane crash scene was pretty damn wild but Six is too lucky to survive, especially when he was briefly fighting in the gaping hole of the aircraft. I have to say the same when he jumps onto the car as the tram crashes. I then wonder how is Lloyd able to look through Six’s whereabouts when he said he doesn’t even have a file on him? If Fitzroy or Suzanne have a secret one not even the CIA, that should’ve been acknowledged. Of all the mistakes Lloyd makes, it’s choosing to not pay Avik when his job was to recover the flash drive. Had he demanded Six to be dealt with as well, then maybe he would deserve to not pay him. I would’ve just paid him half of what was promised until the other half o the job was complete. With that being said, if he was that much of a cheater, he should’ve pulled out his knife from the get go when fighting Six. However, this can still be entertaining to get through after ignoring this. In short, The Gray Man is an entertaining action film that finds it way to surprise you variously. If you got Netflix and dig action, this is worthwhile.
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