A good spy thriller can help shake up the summer monotony of superhero sequels, horror movies from famous directors, and crazy children’s movies. And the Russo brothers (“Avengers Endgame”) have another action-packed movie.
“The Gray Man” is their latest film. After four films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the director brothers have turned their attention to producing specific films for Netflix.
This new film focuses on a CIA assassin named Six (Ryan Gosling) who stumbles upon encrypted information after a near miss on a target. What follows is a cat and mouse manhunt.
CIA Deputy Director Carmichael (René-Jean Page, “Bridgerton”) sends a privatized asset called Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to retrieve Six’s information and get rid of the man by any means possible.
Performances sell the story more than anything else. Gosling plays Six with a minimum of restraint. He is a man of few words who employs his father’s tough macho survival training to his advantage.
Ana de Armas (“Knives Out”) has good chemistry with Gosling on screen as the CIA agent teams up with him; their work together on “Blade Runner 2049” works in their favor.
The actor who stole the show is Evans. He is sadistic and likes his work as an asset recovery specialist. For an actor who spends a good part of his career playing heroic protagonists, it’s fun to see him enjoying himself as a sociopath.
The action scenes – a staple for these films – are well-paced and intense. A public firefight in Prague is one of the funniest sequences. There is clearly an idea of the geography of the setting and where all the players are located.
And while there are a lot of nice elements in the film, it’s not a perfect film. Writing about history is a cliché and no subtitles are needed which indicate several international locations; they are great and a good shot of a local landmark would tell the audience better where things are taking place.
Carmichael’s evil motives are inconsistent. The operation at the beginning of the film was supposed to be discreet even though it was fine with some collateral damage. When the aforementioned Vienna scene appears, he doesn’t care how public Hansen’s manhunt becomes or how many civilians are caught in the crossfire.
During a time when Netflix has been bleeding subscribers and firing animation studios, this is one of the best projects the streaming service has made.
Recent comments on movie-going patrons by co-director Joe Russo have gotten a bit controversial. He describes the experience as “elitist” due to how expensive it is to go to the theater.
To be honest, it’s expensive, but it partly has to do with industry projections. Although it is a money-making venture, more and more revenue from ticket sales is returning to the studios as the theaters themselves (and their employees) survive on funds raised from overpriced concessions. This is nothing new.
But with the pandemic more or less over, there has been a push in the industry to bring patrons back to the theater. Most of these ads were produced by the franchisees themselves, but without the sponsorship these companies and their employees would have gone out of business.
Ironically, it’s the same industry partnering with these companies that works hard to get movies out as fast as possible even in streaming, while requiring cinemas to produce as much financial compensation as possible.
While the hybrid model seems to work and offers less expensive options for viewers, audiences still want to go to the movies because it’s not only fun to take a break from reality, but it’s also useful to get out of the house after more than a year of blocking.
