The Gray Man

The Gray Man (2022) is a highly entertaining, and to me, memorable thriller. I've rewatched it four times now, which is rare for me. The visuals and effects are (mostly) high quality, and heavily contribute to making the movie intense. All of this, however, doesn't make the film absolutely flawless. Some scenes feel visually cluttered, and the plot is similar to many other action/crime thrillers. To add on, the budget was $200,000,000 - very high for a thriller with the sole purpose of a few hours of entertainment. Most films of this quality cost less than $100,000,000 to make. Overall, this is a very entertaining movie with awesome visuals (applies to most scenes) and intense action sequences, but does contain a mediocre plot and has an unnecessarily high budget. Worth at least 1-2 views for all action movie fans.

It's good stuff, but ought to have been so much more. 'The Gray Man' features all the ingredients to have become a quality movie. Unfortunately, it is simply 'just' a watchable popcorn action flick. That's not necessarily a criticism in itself, it's just that I had hoped for far greater. Ryan Gosling puts in an entertaining performance, his dynamic with youngster Julia Butters is reminiscent of his similar showing with Angourie Rice in 2016's 'The Nice Guys'. Chris Evans and Ana de Armas are noteworthy positives alongside Gosling. The worldwide vibe of the story is cool, while the action sequences - aside from one 'skydiving' scene - are satisfactory enough. I enjoyed the film thus have no real complaints, it just could've/should've been something more memorable.

**Overall : The big-budget, big stars, and big action felt more like a knockoff of other action franchises than a success in itself.** The Gray Man is the result of putting a Fast and Furious movie in a blender with Taken or John Wick and Michael Bay. The outrageous action and super cheesy dialogue try to take itself as a serious spy movie. Don’t get me wrong-it’s not a bad movie. The fight choreography is pretty good, and the Gray Man boasts an impressive A-list cast. It is a decent generic action flick. But the goofiness of Chris Evans’ villain was almost at Batman & Robin levels. I really wanted to rate this movie a little higher (like a 3.5 of 5 or 7 of 10), but it just falls short.