Tuesday, 26 July 2022

VOD: The Gray Man (dirs: Anthony and Joe Russo, 2022)

"Where are you?"
"Emotionally?"

A criminal (Ryan Gosling) gets released from jail to become an expendable CIA assassin, but he gains vital intelligence about internal corruption when sent to kill another agent, and thus becomes target himself with a huge bounty attached, in the sights of another crack/unbalanced operative (Chris Evans) in Netflix's most expensive film to date.  Visuals are huge, expansive, expensive-looking and frantically busy with a glossy globe-trotting sheen, but the film is saddled with relentlessly vapid dialogue delivered mostly in a dully disinterested manner that consistently fails to engage the viewer (rather like Netflix's 2021 blockbuster Red Notice).  There are some ambitious and costly-looking set pieces, such as a fight on a mid-air disintegrating transport plane and an obligatory but well-mounted car/tram chase, which occasionally lift the film.  Gosling makes for an efficient if slightly dour action hero, and Evans does his quirky psychopathic routine with relish, but the script too often resorts to spelling out everything in big capital letters, and surprisingly little actually happens in over two hours.  The film clearly aches to be a Bond or Bourne or John Wick but does not come close.
 

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