I,
like many other reasonable people in this world, do not like raisins in my
trail mix. M&Ms go together with nuts like a hand in a glove or a metaphor
in a movie review, but throw some raisins into the blend and I instantly start
to regret my choice of snack. Raisins by themselves are fine. Everything else
in trail mix is quite good; it is the combination that is less than the sum of
its parts. The Gray Man, Netflix’s newest original movie, has some
real M&Ms and peanuts in it in the form of cool action scenes, admirable
directing, and even a few bearable performances here and there. What it has in
equal measure, however, are some undeniable raisins—a boring plot, boring
characters, and a whole lot of bad dialogue.
With an insane budget of $500 million (which makes it one of the two most
expensive Netflix movies ever made, tied with Red Notice) and a
glut of famous names and faces, Netflix clearly spared no expense when it came
to this Ryan Gosling-led thriller. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, the
wunderkind brothers behind Cherry and a few obscure indie
films like Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity
War and Avengers: Endgame, The Gray Man does
actually have a lot going on for it. The action is exceptionally choreographed
and well-staged throughout, if occasionally a bit hard to follow. These fights
all have fun and creative gimmicks, with one taking place amongst a bunch of
fireworks as they launch, one involving heavy use of an extension chord, and a
plethora more. The film is filled with cool camerawork and a who's-who of great
actors, with big names such as Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Billy Bob Thornton,
Alfre Woodard, and Rege-Jean Page joining in on the action.
One of the raisins that taints this film is the fact that none of these
talented people have much to work with in the way of plot or character. Ryan
Gosling shows all the emotion of a particularly withdrawn member of the Queen's
Guard (you know, the guys with the hats), the supporting characters don’t
really have any personalities and seem to exist only to fulfill their one
predestined narrative function, and only Chris Evans seems to be having fun as
the thoroughly evil and mustachioed villain in the movie’s sole memorable
performance. The plot is cookie-cutter, the twists nonexistent, and I could
tell you that I certainly didn’t care about any of it. The biggest raisin of
all has to be the dialogue, however; when fed into Google translate I’m sure
most Gosling’s lines would be a variation of “I’m cool. We’re all cool. Oh
please think I’m a cool action man.”
Overall The
Gray Man does a decent enough job of doing what it sets out to do:
Entertain. You won’t have a delicious time and you won’t have a nutritious
time, but there’s at least enough chocolate in it that you won’t mind the empty
calories.
The
Gray Man is now available on Netflix.
This review was first published in the Keizertimes on July 29th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/
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