Does anybody know what Netflix is doing anymore? Cancelling shows, increasing prices, losing subscribers and then, they (reportedly) give $200 million for a film like The Gray Man? Look, this review will be mostly positive as I enjoyed it just fine, but somebody at Netflix has lost the plot. Sure, you can see they get the biggest stars and travel on locations (the scene in Prague was the highlight for me, but I might be biased), yet if the result still seems like a “James Bond on a diet”, something is wrong.
As promised, let’s start with some positives. The cast is great. But that’s almost cheating when you have Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas and Billy Bob Thornton at your disposal. They all do well with what they were given, mainly Chris Evans, and his moustache is having a blast playing a bad guy after being Captain America for so long. I liked the back and forth between Gosling and Ana de Armas, and I appreciated they weren’t “teamed up properly” but were doing their own thing rather being full-time partners.
I also liked certain set pieces, from the begging one in Bangkok to the highlight in Prague. And no, I am not saying it because I am from the Czech Republic, but I (mostly) enjoyed that the most because it seemed non-stop. Every time you thought it couldn’t go bigger, it went bigger and louder. They effectively destroyed half of Prague, but details, right? The reason I said “mostly” in my previous sentence will go down as my first negative – the actual action scenes.
Anthony Russo and Joe Russo might have been involved with MCU too much as they know how to stage a set-piece, but they still don’t know how to direct a semi-decent action scene. The Gray Man suffers badly because of that, as it is obvious – if your film revolves around action, you better shoot it right. And by right, I mean the viewer can understand where everybody is; won’t get dizzy due to many jump cuts, all of that jazz. This film did exactly… none of this. Ok, some of the action was solid, but around 80% was just a bunch of flashy/smokey action scenes. On top of them being “flashy and smokey”, they were cut to death. You will notice that they had some expensive drones, I would imagine, and at one point, it seems like somebody on the set yelled: “Hey, we paid like a lot of money for these drones! We sure we don’t need to use them more?“, to which one of the Russos replied: “See, that is why we keep you around, have more Netflix money, you bastard! Hey, camera person, we need 30% more drone footage ASAP!” I have nothing against drones, but at some point, you need to stop and think whether the way you are shooting your film enhances it; or whether you are doing it just because you can.
That was my main bone with this film. Surely if you have such a massive budget, you should be able to deliver a movie that’s better than “pretty ok”. And if you want to have a spy film where you know there are about to be many action sequences, you try your hardest to get some decent stunt coordinators to, you know, help you with those scenes? If Netflix wants to start a franchise with some of these characters (and they do), shouldn’t the first film be amazing on its own to justify the franchise? This is why I started this review by saying Netflix has lost the plot. As big as they might be, they aren’t that big to “throw money at the wall and see what sticks”. At some point, you need to stop and ask; why these big-budget films like The Gray Man or Red Notice (2021, my review here) seem to be getting pretty mediocre reviews. Because here’s the thing, nobody says they are bad movies, no. People are noticing they aren’t that great to justify the massive budgets these “big” films are getting from Netflix. It will be fascinating to see if (or better question is when) something will snap, and Netflix will have to put some stop on massive projects and scale down.
Overall, The Gray Man is a decently good time with a great cast and mediocre to bad action sequences. You can tell Netflix spent serious money on this film, but it never truly breaks through from the “alright” territory. And that’s a shame, as there was massive potential. If we are getting sequels and/or spin-offs, can we please give them to somebody who can work with less money and give us better action? Gareth Evans would be my candidate, and for what he’s done with his Raid films, he is still criminally underrated or not talked about enough.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
