The Gray Man movie review: Wildly entertaining and totally brainless

It’s gripping and entertaining and it’s loud and bombastic. It’s also totally brainless, requiring very few IQ points to appreciate its entire proposition.

The Gray Man really begs the question, does an action movie need to have some deeper meaning, making full use of the dramatic range of its mega-talented cast or is it enough that it thrills and captivates?

If the movie can make you physically react – say, wince at a brutal kick to the face or eyes pop at a complex, Rube Goldberg-esque explosive set-piece – then does it matter that its characters aren’t particularly well defined as little more than “psychopath” and “psychopath’s target”?

When the action is well-staged and the actors are charismatic, and where the plot and machinations aren’t trying to be too clever for it to handle, then yes, it’s enough.

That doesn’t mean The Gray Man is a fantastic film, but it does mean it’s serviceable. And there is plenty of basic enjoyment to be wrung from serviceable.

A star vehicle for Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, The Gray Man releases on Netflix next week but it’s getting a short run in cinemas first – and it’s worth schlepping to your nearest because it’s the kind of action flick that plays better on a big screen.

When almost all of its appeal is in the spectacle, make that spectacle as big as you can.

The plot is simple enough. Gosling plays a character called Court Gentry, codenamed Sierra Six. He’s part of a clandestine network of assassins quietly employed by the CIA to do its dirty work.

Six is an efficient killer – he doesn’t ask questions, he wears the splashy red suit he’s told to adorn and he gets the job done. It’s the slight wavering on that last count which lands him in trouble on his latest mission.

While on assignment, Six comes across some compromising information which his boss Carmichael (Rege-Jean Page) really doesn’t want made public. In a supreme act of arse-covering, Carmichael enlists former uni chum Lloyd Hansen to take Six out – and just to be clear, he’s not taking him out for dinner.

Lloyd is the psychopath in question. Flashy, overly confident and fond of tight-fitting threads, Lloyd doesn’t believe in morality or temperance. There is no line he won’t across, no one he will not exploit to achieve his means.

The Gray Man is essentially a playful two-hour chase between two marquee stars.

Gosling is doing the taciturn but not-a-robot action anti-hero he’s perfected in previous outings such as Drive and Blade Runner 2049 (although in the case of the latter, he literally was a robot) – and he is always compelling to watch, while Evans gleefully hams it up in a performance that’s verging on camp — it works.

The Gray Man convincingly makes the argument that they’re evenly matched and if it wasn’t for storytelling conventions that the amoral villain must lose, it could have gone either way.

There are supporting characters thrown in to occasionally gummy up the works or boost the emotional stakes. It’s almost a waste to have a supporting cast that’s as glitzy as de Armas, Page, Billy Bob Thornton, Alfre Woodard, Wagner Moura and Jessica Henwick, but it adds to movie’s overall allure.

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, the filmmaking brothers behind a raft of Marvel movies including Avengers: Endgame, The Gray Man showcases its helmers’ aptitude for a good action sequence.

The set-pieces range from colossal all-in gunfights to intimate hand-to-hand combat, and it’s all pretty engaging. So maybe it doesn’t matter that The Gray Man, ultimately, has nothing to say and does nothing new.

Rating: 3/5

The Gray Man is in cinemas now and on Netflix from July 22

Originally published as The Gray Man review: Netflix’s wildly entertaining and totally brainless movie