The Gray Man (2022)

Score: 1.5 / 5

It was just so boring, I couldn't stand it. The Russo brothers proved themselves immensely capable directors with several of the biggest entries in the MCU, but it seems several of their efforts since have struggled to do much at all. And maybe, due to its star power and big names, their latest will have a healthy viewership. But watchability and draw are very much not the same as enjoyability and artistic integrity, or even solid storytelling. It smacks all the more hollow because it's the first installment of what Netflix seems to hope will be a series.

Ryan Gosling plays Sierra Six, an assassin and spy working for the CIA. His handler is Billy Bob Thornton, and his new boss is Regé-Jean Page; they all have character names, but I didn't care enough to learn them. The story proper jumps right off from these brief introductions, as Gosling enacts his latest mission in Bangkok, taking out a target who is revealed to be a fellow agent. Much like in a Mission: Impossible scenario -- but not nearly as well-executed -- the target tells Gosling about his boss's criminality and provides evidence as he dies. Gosling immediately goes on the run as Page makes him a target in turn. But he's no Ethan Hunt or even John Wick, and frankly I just didn't care. Gosling is stoic and active, and the character is basically void of personality or motivation.

To stop Gosling, Page brings in an ex-CIA mercenary, Chris Evans, sporting a ridiculous mustache and a sociopathic streak. Page seems desperate, and Evans is certainly up to the task by any means necessary. Unleashed on Gosling, Evans is a wild card, resorting immediately to torture and kidnapping and murder. He's probably the most fleshed-out character in this film, but even he has only a handful of concrete character details. He's also not particularly interesting, just pretty to watch (except for that bizarre growth on his upper lip). I hoped when Ana de Armas showed up to help Gosling that she'd save us from these shallow men, but the film barely even recognizes her as a person and treats her like an even more shallow sidekick. The only other woman of much consequence in the film is Thornton's niece, the kidnapped girl, so our two prominent women are relegated to cringey tropes.

The film is occasionally beautiful to behold, but cinematographer Stephen F. Windon of Fast & Furious fame mostly makes the movie look dark, cold, and lifeless. You can't see half the action or most of the globe-spanning locations through the murky darkness. There is almost no sense of fun in the film, and maybe there doesn't need to be, but when it becomes a slog to continue, that's a problem. I actually stopped watching it the first time because I couldn't take it any more; I finished up the last half hour the next day, but frankly I wish I hadn't. What a waste of resources.