In the Grey (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

Guy Ritchie's latest rambunctious action-filled crime film is a bit of a misnomer.

When something is in a gray area, we usually mean that a situation is morally complicated to the point that no action can be clearly identified as right or wrong. So when Rachel (Eiza Gonzalez), a lawyer and high-stakes strongman for the wealthy and naughty, describes in her opening narration that she lives and works "in the grey," I didn't expect a plot featuring what she'd later call a pincer operation. Before long, we understand that how she recovers debts for rich and powerful clients is to hunt down and corner the debtor using both legal and extralegal means. This means, basically, things like freezing their assets and being formally investigated by court order as well as sending out specialists for violence and terror, all so the debtor pays up. I'm not sure that constitutes ambiguity so much as it describes having a foot in two worlds; she's a merc vigilante who happens to also serve justice in court. It sounds more like the plot of a Shondaland series, doesn't it?

Her best help are her two sons, easily a decade older than she. Sid and Bronco (Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal) are quirky leaders of a mercenary commando squad, a team of elite operatives who can infiltrate and basically wage war as needed to pressure Rachel's targets into paying their debts. Apparently she saved them, in the recent past, from death row in a foreign prison, and they must have sworn an oath of loyalty to her; Ritchie doesn't tell or show us much, beyond a brief flashback to said release from prison, and some intentionally funny yet confusing language about "mom" and "boys" between the characters. In typical Ritchie style, the rapid-fire dialogue is dry and layered, rendering it occasionally difficult to parse and consume; I watched with subtitles, which helped considerably. 

The performers, at least the leads of whom have worked with Ritchie before, feel lived-in and comfortable, as if we already know them, too. These aren't performances that take us some time to appreciate or settle into; they just are these strange, Coen-brothers-esque people with verbal shorthands and disarming alertness despite seeming so bored. It's like seeing John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in a Western, or Doris Day in a musical: these people seem to simply be their character, even in the public eye, even decades later. Obviously the guys look great, and inasmuch as we can know anything about their internal lives -- the film is quite opaque on that front; this is by no means a movie for studying characters -- it seems they're a couple. Hard to tell, their exact relationship, but one claims the other is his husband and they express love in a stilted, stoic, realistic way. They're definitely more than just brothers in arms, at any rate. And this, too, shapes the unique tone of this film, with its intentionally playful machismo. They and their team share a beautiful dynamic we don't often see in mainstream films, and there are some fun elements of gender play that feel like a throwback to old Howard Hawks movies.

Also typical of Ritchie's projects, there's a profound diversity of eye candy in the film. Despite not capitalizing on the beautiful bodies of his stars, Ritchie offers up a smorgasbord of costumes, locations, and action to keep us interested. Or, rather, entertained. I never once cared about the plot of this film, mired in excessively detailed technicalities of international banking and tactical invasion of an island fortress. Caring about the superficial elements is the game in this kind of film: gorgeous vistas of Saudi Arabia and the Canary Islands, a vehicular chase on dangerous roads and lots of firefights, and knockout habiliments that include seersucker, desert robes a la Lawrence of Arabia, and some devastating suits. These are what carried me through this film.

Which is good, because I am still not entirely sure about the plot specifics. Not due to any fault of the filmmakers, though; this thing is edited to death (by Martin Walsh, prolific editor extraordinaire) in clever montages with explanatory voiceovers about all the various schemes and plots as they unfold. Sometimes live action flash-forwards help us understand that the plan is unfolding as planned, intercut as they are with the map or diagram. But the quick pacing and constant stream of voiceover monologuing left me feeling breathless, bemused, and sometimes befuddled. This may work well for viewers who enjoy the sensory overload that is life with our cell phones, but not so much for me. I enjoy breathing while watching a movie, and being able to focus on something.

And, for goodness' sake, if you're going to cast Rosamund Pike in something, please let her show off. She deserves more time to shine.