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Ryan Gosling may not have played a superhero (yet) but he gets closer than ever before in the mega-budget Netflix production “The Gray Man,” the streaming service's summer blockbuster from the directors of “ Avengers: Endgame ,” Anthony and Joe Russo . It’s understandable why Gosling would sign up and Netflix would open not just their wallet but an entire bank vault for the Russos to adapt the book by Mark Greaney , with an eye to starting a new mega-franchise of their own. However, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Netflix has too little creative oversight over projects like these, just letting creators run off with their money and not really caring about what they deliver. After all, it fits the algorithm, right? People will watch “The Gray Man” by the millions. They just won’t be able to name a memorable thing about it a few days later. If this is the start of a franchise, and it almost certainly is, let’s hope “The Gray Man” finds a little more definition in future installments.

The star of “ La La Land ” and “ Drive ” plays a spy named Sierra Six (“007 was taken”), who was recruited out of prison by a handler named Donald Fitzroy ( Billy Bob Thornton ). After that very brief set-up, “The Gray Man” hits the ground running with a mission gone very awry when Six is tasked by a new boss named Denny Carmichael ( Regé-Jean Page ) with taking out a target that turns out to be a fellow secret agent. The dying man tells Six that Denny is a bad guy before handing him the intel to prove it. Immediately, our stoic hero is on the run, before he’s really had any time to develop a personality as a movie character. That kind of blank protagonist is fine for taut, precise action films like those in the “ John Wick ” franchise, but this isn’t nearly that tight of a production. This movie needed an Ethan Hunt, someone defined by more than just the clichés that he won’t shoot a kid and he has a dark past. (Seriously, it would be tough to name five characteristics of this hero that we’re supposed to follow for two hours. Never a good sign.)

As Six goes on the run, Carmichael calls in Lloyd Hansen ( Chris Evans ), a former CIA black ops mercenary who now works in the private sector where there are even fewer rules about things like torture and dumb mustaches. Hansen will do whatever it takes to get Six, including kidnapping Fitzroy’s daughter Claire ( Julia Butters ) to get his attention. Of course, Six has a connection with Claire having watched over her a few years ago. He’s the spy who wants kids to live, which separates him from a sociopath like Hansen. Meanwhile, another spy named Dani Miranda ( Ana de Armas ) joins Six on his quest for freedom. and she is given even less character definition than her male counterparts, believe it or not.

And that’s really it for two hours. Good guy, bad guy, woman in the middle, kid in jeopardy, things go boom. Some of the action sequences, especially an insane one in a town square, can be pretty effective, but most of the film is shot at such a bizarrely low light that it dulls even the incredible screen presence of the undeniably charismatic Gosling, Evans, and de Armas. Seriously, whoever thought the right lighting for most of a globe-trotting action flick was the low light palette of “Ozark” deserves a cinematic jail sentence. “The Gray Man” should be joyously over-the-top if it wants to be a new Fast & Furious or Bourne franchise but with the exception of a wisecracking Evans, everything here feels so programmatically dull. It’s a silly piece of popcorn entertainment that too often forgets that this kind of venture needs to be fun .

Part of the problem is that Evans is never set up as an interesting threat. In fact, he seems kind of horrible at his job—a colleague says that an asset removal gone horribly, a headline-making wrong, will be taught in schools as to what not to do. This isn’t a battle of wills so much as a good spy vs. a crazy spy. There’s something underdeveloped in the idea that Gosling is the old-fashioned spy and Evans is the brute force modern maniac whose strategy seems to just be to blow up as much as possible, but the script by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus , and Stephen McFeely keeps trying to sell us on Hansen being a terrifying genius and there’s really no evidence of the latter part.

Like so much original entertainment in the streaming world, “The Gray Man” seems scared to take an actual risk. There have been many pieces written about the algorithms and templates that feel like they’re driving creative decisions more than actual human beings. When will a company like Netflix throw $200 million at a movie and emerge with a “John Wick,” “ Mission: Impossible ,” “ Mad Max: Fury Road ,” or even a “ Fast Five ”? It might take an actual superhero for something like that to happen.

In theaters now and on Netflix Friday, July 22 nd .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

The Gray Man (2022)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of strong violence, and strong language.

128 minutes

Ryan Gosling as Court Gentry

Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen

Ana de Armas as Dani Miranda

Jessica Henwick as Suzanne Brewer

Regé-Jean Page as Denny Carmichael

Wagner Moura as Laszlo Sosa

Julia Butters as Claire Fitzroy

Alfre Woodard as Margaret Cahill

Billy Bob Thornton as Donald Fitzroy

• Anthony Russo

Writer (novel)

• Mark Greaney
• Christopher Markus
• Stephen McFeely

Cinematographer

• Stephen F. Windon
• Pietro Scalia
• Henry Jackman

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‘The Gray Man’ Review: Guy vs. Guy

Ryan Gosling plays a blasé government operative opposite Chris Evans’s showy psychopath in this globe-trotting spy action movie.

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By Amy Nicholson

The frenetic caper “The Gray Man,” from the directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, boasts more vibrant color than the typical globe-trotting shoot-em-up about the C.I.A., a distinctly drab organization. The Russos’ lead, an agent known as Six (Ryan Gosling), wears a snazzy red suit with matching fingernail polish to his first onscreen assassination. Six works for his freedom, not his 401(k): He is a convicted murderer who was plucked from prison by a government suit (played by Billy Bob Thornton) and placed in a secret kill squadron. He seems to be OK with the deal, despite showing a light layer of fatigue that Gosling wears like a rain poncho.

The Russos’ more-is-more filmmaking ethos leaves little room for Gosling to explore Six’s complexities. Six’s opening hit goes askew, shattering his job security. And as this extravagant adventure sprints across 10 countries, including Thailand and Azerbaijan, Six remains unflappably blasé. “I get it, you’re glib,” Thornton’s character says to him. So is every other person in the movie, a funny, if indistinguishable, blitz of quipping colleagues, snarky villains (including the main bad guy, a heavy played by Chris Evans) and a hardened cancer patient (Alfre Woodard) who glowers, “If you say anything even remotely sympathetic, I will shoot you.”

The film’s writers — Joe Russo along with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, frequent collaborators on the brothers’ films — have created a screenplay that is an assault of amusement; a barrage of bullets and one-liners. The razzle-dazzle does quite a bit to invigorate what is at its core a routine tale. (It comes as no shock that the real enemy is, as ever, the C.I.A. itself, in a story that contains no fewer than three all-too-convenient explosions.) Yet the frenzy is also distracting to the brink of self-sabotage. An early fight scene is jazzed with so many spliced-in shots of smoke and fireworks that one worries the Russos are insecure about Gosling’s ability to execute his stunts. Thankfully, the film grows in confidence and inventiveness. In later sequences, Six doggedly rescues himself from a tumbling plane, a trap door and a set of handcuffs.

Gosling and Evans appear to have made an effort to build biceps even bigger than the barrels of their automatic rifles. Evans, whom the Russos have directed as Captain America several times, appears delighted to play a self-proclaimed sociopath who is so bloodthirsty that actual sociopaths ought to sue for defamation. “Ho ho ho!” he chortles, firing a machine gun. The character is too outrageous for any believable menace, but Evans gives him a mustachioed gusto.

The caffeinated cuts and pacing never allow the audience to find its footing in the film’s large, expensive set pieces, which prevents the action from becoming truly thrilling. The best brawl is one of the smallest: It centers on two supporting players (Ana de Armas and Dhanush , a star of Tamil cinema) who strangle each other with a single cable at the same time. Note the moment during a strenuous tramway shootout when Six uses the reflection in a mirrored building to defeat a goon — it’s a clever detail in a film careening full speed ahead.

The Gray Man Rated PG-13 for sprees of violence and profanity. Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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'The Gray Man' Review: Gosling and Evans Face Off in Best Netflix Action Movie Yet

Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana de Armas go head to head in an explosive thriller from the Russo brothers that's already confirmed a sequel and spinoff.

Ryan Gosling switches to action mode in Netflix shoot-'em-up The Gray Man.

That's more like it. Following a string of wildly popular but not very good action movies (Red Notice, Extraction), Netflix delivers with The Gray Man, streaming now. This rip-roaring and star-powered spy romp from the Russo brothers throws all the money at the screen as Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans go head to head.

Having played in some theaters and streaming on Netflix since Friday, July 22, The Gray Man has already been successful enough for Netflix to confirm a sequel (with Gosling returning) and spinoff (from the writers of Deadpool).

The Gray Man opens with Gosling in prison two decades ago, wisecracking at Billy Bob Thornton's unflappable CIA spook. "We get it, you're glib," Thornton responds, but as Gosling contemplates a life of murder for the government, his eyes soften mournfully. And when we catch up to Gosling in the modern day, now a slick killing machine known only as Sierra 6, he's a jaded shell only good for dispatching nameless bad actors who got on the wrong side of Uncle Sam. Except he finds himself at odds with his calculating boss after he refuses to endanger a child.  

Woah woah woah. Seriously? In this, the year 2022, we're still making movies about assassins who go rogue because they won't kill a kid?

OK, fine. So anyway, Gosling comes into conflict with Chris Evans' unhinged mercenary as they're both sent to retrieve a vital USB drive, and --

Hang on, hang on. No. I'm not having it. A USB drive? After 60 years of James Bond on screen , after six (and counting) Mission: Impossible movies, a spy movie hinges on a frickin' thumb drive!

So yeah. On paper, The Gray Man has all the elements of a formulaic spy genre (and I do mean all the elements -- there's about four movies' worth of stuff going on). Thumb drives. A kidnapped niece. Bureaucrats who are the real villains. Wet teams striding across airfields in body armor. Action scenes cutting to analysts panicking in front of walls of monitors. Tense phone calls in skyscrapers. Rooftop helipads and secure lines and guys making the bullets fall out of a gun before the other guy can shoot him. 

But as yet another city name blares across the screen in massive letters, you start to wonder if the filmmakers are mocking the conventions of the spy genre. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo, the men behind several of Marvel's Captain America and Avengers movies, are very self-aware about the type of flick they're making. The quippy banter and sharp action are heightened and stylized, and just a ton of fun. We get it, they're glib. 

That's what sets The Gray Man apart from formulaic plods like Extraction or Amazon's turgid Without Remorse . From the opening scene, in which Gosling goes into battle in a crisp scarlet suit twirling a water pistol, to his silent silhouetted dispatching of a platoon of bodyguards with whatever cutlery comes to hand, the flick has swagger to burn. Don't be fooled by the title: There's nothing gray about the lush cinematography, kinetic camerawork and playful music. The Gray Man is up there with the stylized likes of Atomic Blonde, and might give John Wick a run for his money.

A big part of the film's success is the star wattage on display, Gosling and Evans (and super-charismatic guest star Dhanush) handling the action heroics and quippy banter with equal assuredness. Gosling plays it relatively straight, although Sierra 6's real name is Courtland Gentry, which means he has not one but two improbably cool action hero names. Evans hams it up for the both of them as a suavely unhinged torturer with a wardrobe of natty knitted polo shirts, like James Bond 's maladjusted little brother. His character, by the way, is called Lloyd Hanson, which is less cool than Sierra 6 but sticks in your mind because someone says it literally every 20 seconds.

I mention the names because Ana de Armas is also in this film, but I'm darned if I could tell you what her character's called. While the main guys have backstory (even if Evans' is just "went to Harvard"), her character doesn't have any motivating story that I can recall. The script doesn't even give her much of a personality apart from obligatory super-badassness, and being grumpy when guys yell at her. At least de Armas' appearance in Bond film No Time to Die was essentially a cameo, but this is a waste of the white-hot star of the moment.

The highlight of Ana de Armas' role is probably this suit.

This being an action flick, the many international stopovers lead to violence. It's all fun and games, obviously, all stylishly shot shootouts and rollicking punch-ups. But then there's a huge showdown in the streets of a European city. High-velocity rounds destroy homes. High-caliber death machines sweep crowded public squares. You might not see it, but regular normal people going about their everyday lives clearly get killed in horrible ways. In the wake of public shootings in the US, Denmark and Norway (and that's just this year) this callous ultraviolence hits different.

Maybe, just maybe, that's the point. After this apocalyptic battle, the film doesn't merrily exfil to the next exotic location. Instead, it lingers in a hospital, surrounded by the wounded and dying. Admittedly, this is partly a setup for the next fight. But The Gray Man at least shows a glimmer of thought about the savagery unfolding on screen, about the silver-screen depiction of violence as redemptive and protective, about the pointlessness of it all. It isn't exactly Drive or Only God Forgives, Gosling's 2011 and 2013 arthouse subversions (with director Nicolas Winding Refn) of the car chase and crime genres. But there's definitely a layer of subversive nuance going on here. It's telling that in this film's world of espionage, we never see any terrorists or doomsday weapons. The only threat to ordinary folk like you and me is the internal squabbling of various grubby sociopaths jockeying for power no matter who gets caught in the crossfire.

Ultimately, The Gray Man encourages us to enjoy the hell out of a stylish shoot-'em-up where good-looking people go bang-bang, while still nudging us to remember it's a fantasy. Maybe I'm squinting too hard to suggest this is Netflix's smartest action film, but it's definitely one of the most fun.

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Expresso ‘The Gray Man’ movie review: Despite two charismatic leads and an efficient Dhanush, the film is just serviceable

You are listening to the Expresso Entertainment Update. Here is a review on the movie “The Gray Man”, brought to you by The Indian Express. ” The Gray Man isn’t big on psychological overtones of the best character development. It doesn’t, however, hold back when it comes to the action set pieces and great visualization of stunts. Anthony and Joe Russo, who are co-producers of the film, bring a screenplay written by Joe with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to the screen through a directorial lens that affects heavily explosions, chases and thrills. No sooner does one action sequence run its course than the ground is quickly cleared for the next one with an eye on delivering non-stop excitement.

In this newly released Russo Brothers movie, Chris Evans’ Lloyd Hansen asks Ryan Gosling’s Six at one point, how did he know that Chris was Lloyd since they had never seen each other before. Ryan Gosling responds sassily, “The white pants, the trash ‘stache…it leans Lloyd.”

If someone were to question you about identifying a Russo Brothers actioner, you too would have a similar cheeky rejoinder — ‘Massive set pieces, foreign locations, convincing action choreography aided by some charismatic actors’. And you would not be wrong. If you have to boil things down to their basics, there are maybe three or four ingredients that make up this relentless but only slightly above-average action flick; actors who know their job (thank God), slick action moves and a lot of talk over the phone.

The Gray Man is about Ryan Gosling’s brooding Agent Six, who is rehabilitated as a spy to work for an elite unit in tandem with the CIA. During one job, where he has to ‘take out’ people, Six discovers he might be killing someone innocent. He stops to gather the pieces and manages to uncover the dirty secrets of the top guys. This top management, headed by Bridgerton’s breakout star Rege-Jean Page alias Denny Carmichael, orders one of his senior executives played by Jessica Henwick to recruit Chris Evans’ psychopathic Lloyd Hansen to catch the uncatchable Sierra Six. Lots of cool-looking action at cooler-looking places follow. Helicopters and buildings explode, shots are fired and we even get a hand-to-hand combat sequence at a scenic fountain between Six and Lloyd, where the men show off their skills in inflicting physical violence which is a definite delight for hardcore action movie buffs and fans of the two stars.

In one of the high-end action highlights of The Gray Man, Six, handcuffed to a bench in Prague, takes on Lloyd’s men and an aggressive group of policemen. It is the kind of high-in action with stunts and in-your-face passage that lifts the film appreciably when all else seems to be falling into a fading storyline of sorts. The film is sprinkled with numerous such stunts but not all of them work quite as well.

Technically, The Gray Man has all the elements of a formulaic spy genre. Spontaneous drives. A kidnapped niece. Bureaucrats are the villains of society. Teams pacing across airfields in body armour. Action scenes cut to analysts panicking in front of walls of monitors. Tense phone calls in skyscrapers. Rooftop helipads and secure lines and guys making the bullets fall out of a gun before the other guy can shoot him. But as yet another city name resounds across the screen in massive letters, you start to wonder if the filmmakers are mocking or are serious about the conventions of the spy genre. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo, the men behind several of Marvel’s Captain America and Avengers movies, are very self-aware about the type of flick or genre they are presenting. The goofy banter and sharp action are heightened and inflated exceptionally.

Indian star Dhanush , in his second Hollywood film, gets a grand entry. He also gets to display his fighting skills as he combats with both Ana de Armas and Gosling in a longish scene. Although his screen time is more than one would have thought it would be, Dhanush has only a couple of lines to say in those bits. This can may be justified in a way, since spies, at least the conventional ones, are supposed to do more than they say. Dhanush’s Avik does exactly that. He is also the only one in the movie perhaps who has a strong moral compass, which Russos highlights early on by showing him touching a rudraksha mala, which is considered sacred. Subtle. As for the women — Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick and Margaret Cahill — they are good actors who are not given that much importance, maybe barring Ana’s Dani Miranda, a special CIA agent who has Six’s back. The issue here is, that there’s only so much meat for such a big ensemble cast. Everyone has to make do with what they get because of course, the largest chunks go to Gosling and Evans.

The Gray Man promises – and attempts – to put across the execution at its best to the whole world but falls short by many a mile. However, watching Ryan Gosling, who has mastered the art of moving from arthouse films to tentpole productions with an effort to spare, and Chris Evans, getting out of his Captain America space, having a go at each other has its charm. Sadly, the broad sweeps and the absence of grays in their showdowns take some of the charms away.

Bottomline: This is a decent one-time watch if you keep your expectations in half, but could have done so much more with a leaner narrative and some editing in the second part.

Directed by the Russos, The Gray Man is currently streaming on Netflix. ”

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The Gray Man First Reviews: Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans Elevate an Action-Heavy Blockbuster

Critics are split on the netflix spy thriller, which looks and feels expensive and benefits from the charms of its big-name leads, but feels like a bit less than the sum of its parts..

TAGGED AS: Action , Netflix , streaming

Netflix’s latest action movie, The Gray Man , is also the biggest ever to arrive on the streaming service. With a reported budget of $200 million, the spy flick aims to compete with the studios’ summer blockbusters, and according to the first reviews of the movie, it does an outstanding job of it. Courtesy of some thrilling stunts directed by Avengers: Endgame helmers Joe and Anthony Russo and the charisma and chemistry of stars Ryan Gosling , Chris Evans , and Ana de Armas , The Gray Man might even be the perfect start to a popular new action franchise.

Here’s what critics are saying about The Gray Man :

Has Netflix scored a solid blockbuster?

The Russos have unleashed what may stand as the best pure action movie of 2022. – Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson

The action is some of the best you’re likely to see this year – and yes, that includes Top Gun: Maverick . – Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

Does it look expensive?

The Gray Man is Netflix’s most expensive movie ever, and it shows. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Slashfilm

Holy potatoes, did they put every dollar of it into a substantial extravaganza of mayhem… lavish enough to compete with the Jason Bourne films and the current Mission: Impossible and Fast and Furious juggernauts. – Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson

It’s a Bond-level summer blockbuster. – Peter Debruge, Variety

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo have made a tentpole blockbuster with action and carnage on the scale of one of their Marvel movies. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

Once the scale becomes such that computers need to step in and provide the special effects, this very expensive movie begins to look very cheap… Netflix did not get their money’s worth out of their VFX. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

(Photo by ©Netflix)

How does it compare to other Netflix movies?

The Gray Man feels like a step above the streamer’s past action movies, offering more exciting fight sequences, more uproarious humor, and a more completely entertaining movie experience. – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

This [might not be] Netflix’s smartest action film, but it’s definitely one of the most fun. – Richard Trenholm, CNET

The cinematography is better than average for a Netflix movie, backing off the usual orange and teal. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

This is the most exciting original action property Netflix has delivered since Bright . – Peter Debruge, Variety

It feels a step up from other Netflix blockbusters like Red Notice . – James Mottram, South China Morning Post

For a Netflix action picture with huge stars, The Gray Man is better, certainly, than Red Notice , but not as good as Extraction . – Jordan Hoffman, TV Guide

What about other big action movies in general?

The Gray Man is up there with the stylized likes of Atomic Blonde and might give John Wick a run for his money. – Richard Trenholm, CNET

It twists all of its Bourne and Bond influences into something quite different but equally exceptional. – Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

None of The Gray Man’ s still-Bourne thrills are executed with the precise elegance of John Wick , the winking doggery of James Bond or the joyful craftsmanship of Mission: Impossible . – Jacob Oller, Paste Magazine

It feels closer in tone and spirit to Michael Bay’s gonzo ’90s action movies, where trivial details like logic and coherence took a backseat to adrenalized spectacle. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

So is the action good?

The Gray Man has some of the most bonkers action sequences I’ve seen, from a stunning hand-to-hand combat scene in a fireworks staging area to a daring escape from a crashing plane and a high-speed pursuit atop a runaway metro car in the middle of Prague. – Joey Morona, Cleveland Plain Dealer

The car chases are full of tactile, nail-biting stunts, the action scenes explosive, and the Russo brothers are the latest filmmakers to try their hand at replicating the heights of that Dark Knight Hong Kong fight scene. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Slashfilm

There’s one spectacular set piece set within a plaza in Prague that then goes onto a train, and it’s as good as anything from last year’s Shang-Chi , at least in terms of the action. – Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

The action is non-stop if a little numbing in the way hundreds of people get mowed down without a drop of blood. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

A ridiculous freefall sequence looks, even when not compared to its exhilarating peer in Mission: Impossible—Fallout , like Spirit Airlines flushed a GoPro. – Jacob Oller, Paste Magazine

How is the Gosling vs. Evans match-up?

Each time Gosling and Evans face-off, the only word for it is delightful. Their hand-to-hand battles are clever and frenetic. – Sherin Nicole, idobi.com

When Gosling and Evans go toe-to-toe — either with gibes or fists — they’re the most exhilarating scenes in The Gray Man . – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

Gosling and Evans put in two brilliantly yin/yang performances. – Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle

You can’t help but get caught up in the sensation of seeing these two Hollywood stars duke it out in a battle of wills. – Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

Does Ryan Gosling have the right action chops?

Gosling’s never done a major action movie on this level… He’s built his body up to almost Schwarzenegger level here and excels at all the mayhem. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

Gosling, meanwhile, brings just the right amount of dry humor to the role; he hasn’t been this laid-back since playing the wheelman in Drive . – James Mottram, South China Morning Post

Gosling might be wasted for all his talents, but he’s at least always magnetic to watch even if he seems like he’s just on the cusp of having fun. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Slashfilm

As dull as this is, Gosling excels at it… [He] is the best part of a film that doesn’t seem to know how lucky it is to have him. – Jacob Oller, Paste Magazine

Is Chris Evans a good villain?

Evans seems to channel his character in Knives Out , taking glee in how evil he is – he’s basically anti-Captain America. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

Chris Evans was always meant to be a character actor because he’s just so great in the role of a know-it-all sociopath who doesn’t put up with failure from those he hires. – Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

Evans is a delight to see cut loose, acting comically unhinged and still retaining an intimidating presence. – Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

Evans’s performance is, alas, the only notable thing in this preposterous, globe-trotting movie. – Jordan Hoffman, TV Guide

How is Ana de Armas?

De Armas brings some depth to [her character]… and certainly proves her action chops after being underused in No Time to Die . – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

Her attitude and style are impressive. She seems born to lead action movies and might be the next big female action star. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

De Armas needs to star in more of everything, she refuses to be damselled, she does the saving and she excels at it. – Sherin Nicole, idobi.com

De Armas is given [a] somewhat thankless role… but boy, is she fun to watch. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Slashfilm

The script doesn’t even give her much of a personality apart from obligatory super-badassness… This is a waste of the white-hot star of the moment. – Richard Trenholm, CNET

Are there any other standouts in the cast?

Dhanush is a standout in The Gray Man … [His] action scenes are some of the best in the movie. – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

The movie is almost stolen by Tamil star Dhanush, who waltzes in like he’s the lead in his action movie and seems like a no-brainer to get a spin-off. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

Julia Butters, who plays Claire Fitzroy, is a star on the rise. – Danielle Solzman, Solzy at the Movies

How is the writing?

Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely do a great job balancing emotional undertones along with the big action set pieces. – Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

Joe Russo along with his Marvel screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have crafted an intriguing, even playful battle of wits between the charming CIA assassin with a heart and his unhinged adversary. – Joey Morona, Cleveland Plain Dealer

It has something thematically to say about trust and family and succeeds on all counts, not least because of a very smart script with a lot of pithy dialogue for Gosling and Evans in particular. – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

The world-building is a bit exhausting, as it takes the focus away from Gosling’s Gentry too often. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

The screenplay contains several silly moments with the kind of lines that a fifth grader could’ve come up with. – Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

Should we try to see this in theaters?

It’s definitely recommended to watch The Gray Man on the biggest screen possible. – Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

Netflix won’t like me for saying this, but see it in a theater if you can. – Joey Morona, Cleveland Plain Dealer

It was especially fun to see it in a packed theater, where the crowd clearly ate it up… [but] it is edge-of-your-seat action, even if that means edge of your own couch. – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

It definitely feels like a movie made for 4K TVs rather than theaters. – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network

It’s a movie that’s made to be half-watched on Netflix while scrolling on your phone. – Hoai-Tran Bui, Slashfilm

Will we want a sequel?

Based on the initial outing, a Gray Man franchise seems like a smart bet. – Joey Morona, Cleveland Plain Dealer

If sequels are coming, as has been hinted, we’re ready for the next 49 shades of Gray. – John Nugent, Empire Magazine

There is some unfinished business to attend to once the credits roll, which will most likely lead to a sequel. Is it warranted? Probably not. – Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

The Gray Man opens in select theaters on July 15, 2022 and streams on Netflix on July 22, 2022.

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Screen Rant

The gray man review: gosling & evans deliver in fun action franchise starter.

The Gray Man is a spiritual throwback to 80s/90s action movies, with pulse-pounding fight scenes, delightfully cheesy dialogue & wickedly fun villain.

Netflix's latest attempt at the action movie blockbuster is The Gray Man , which is based on Mark Greaney's 2009 spy thriller novel. For The Gray Man , directors Anthony and Joe Russo re-team with a few of their Marvel Cinematic Universe collaborators, including writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, as well as Captain America himself Chris Evans. For their second directorial effort since closing out the MCU's Phase 3 with Avengers: Endgame , the Russos assembled a star-studded cast: Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton and Dhanush.  The Gray Man is a spiritual throwback to 80s and 90s action movies, with pulse-pounding fight scenes, delightfully cheesy dialogue, and a wickedly fun villain.

In The Gray Man , Gosling stars as action hero Sierra Six , a member of a covert team within the CIA made up of former criminals recruited by Donald Fitzroy (Thornton) to carry out off-the-books assassinations. When Six is enlisted by the CIA's Denny Carmichael (Page) to eliminate a target, the mission turns out to be more complicated than expected. Six is forced to go on the run, leaving Carmichael to call in the psychopathic mercenary Lloyd Hansen (Evans). Six calls in favors from old friends like former CIA ally Margaret Cahill (Alfre Woodard), and gets help from CIA agent Dani Miranda (de Armas) in order to survive all the killers Hansen drafts to hunt him, including the formidable Avik San (Dhanush). Though Six is one of the CIA's best, it remains to be seen if he'll be able to escape the situation with his life and rescue Fitzroy's niece Claire (Julia Butters) in the process.

Related:  Every Movie Coming To Theaters In July 2022

The story of The Gray Man , as adapted by Markus and McFeely, is a little convoluted and the movie glosses over much of the CIA politics surrounding the Sierra program, focusing instead on the action set pieces and developing the personalities of its characters — particularly Gosling's Six and Evans' Lloyd.  The script itself is chock full of cheesy quips, including, but not even remotely limited to, a comment about Gosling looking like a Ken doll and an order to "make him dead." These are all delivered with just the right amount of panache by Evans, who's devilishly electric as the sociopathic villain. Gosling's Six balances out the outrageous personality of Lloyd with a more stoic and glib action hero, but he's no less entertaining. In fact, when Gosling and Evans go toe-to-toe  — either with gibes or fists — they're the most exhilarating scenes in The Gray Man . The Russos knew what they were doing when they cast Evans and Gosling, and the actors deftly deliver performances that feel deliberately tongue-in-cheek rather than overly grim.

Beyond Gosling and Evans, The Gray Man has an outstanding supporting cast, who help to deliver the exciting action and personality that make the movie so entertaining. The supporting cast don't get nearly as much to work with, but they each do well with what they have. De Armas brings some depth to Dani as she works alongside Gosling's Six, and certainly proves her action chops after being underused in No Time to Die . Thornton, Woodard and Butters are serviceable in their supporting roles, but don't necessarily outshine the stars. Dhanush, on the other hand, is a standout in The Gray Man . Though he has a small role, his character is fiercely brutal and proves to be an intimidating foe for Six. His screen presence is such that Dhanush's action scenes are some of the best in the movie. However, if there are casualties of The Gray Man script, it's Page as Denny and Jessica Henwick as Suzanne, both of whom fail to strike the right tone for the movie and who are afforded no help by their own ridiculous dialogue.

Overall, the Russo brothers deliver a thrilling summer popcorn movie with The Gray Man  that's elevated by the charismatic performances of Gosling and Evans. In terms of Netflix releases, the movie is akin to 6 Underground and Red Notice — both of which are anchored by Ryan Reynolds — and has similar sensibilities in terms of being a globe-trotting action/adventure movie, but with a focus on espionage. What's more,  The Gray Man  doesn't rely on Reynolds' specific brand of humor, instead playing to Gosling and Evans' different strengths in terms of comedy. While Netflix viewers may have their own opinions, The Gray Man feels like a step above the streamer's past action movies, offering more exciting fight sequences, more uproarious humor and a more completely entertaining movie experience.

As such, The Gray Man is certainly worth checking out for anyone remotely interested in the story, cast or filmmakers. Because of the excellently executed action scenes, those who are able would do well with watching The Gray Man in theaters as it heightens the experience. At the very least, it's definitely recommended to watch The Gray Man on the biggest screen possible, even for those who view the movie after its streaming release on Netflix. Between the Russos behind the camera and the talent in front of it,  The Gray Man  is a fun and exciting action thriller. It may be in the vein of cheesy 80s and 90s action movies, but that makes The Gray Man all the more entertaining and rewatchable.

Next: Neon Lights Review: Psychological Thriller Quickly Loses The Plot

The Gray Man  releases in limited theaters on Friday, July 15, followed by a Netflix streaming release on Friday, July 22. The film is 129 minutes long and rated PG-13 for intense sequences of strong violence, and strong language.

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The Gray Man Is the Most Expensive Movie Netflix Has Ever Made, and It’s … Fine

The gray man, played by Ryan Gosling, is an off-books government killer whose real name is Court Gentry, which sounds fake enough (Beau Monde Patrician? Noble Fancyperson?) to make the idea of a code name feel a little superfluous. But he has one of those, too: Sierra Six, which is a reference to the CIA program he’s recruited into at the start of the movie as well as a not-so-subtle nod to a certain globe-trotting spy. “007 was taken,” Six even quips at one point, and if openly pointing out that you’re a knockoff version of a famous character would feel like hubris in most other movies, well, The Gray Man is a Netflix original, and churning out brand-new properties that feel a lot like things you’ve seen before has become the streaming giant’s main jam. And in many ways, it sums up what Netflix is now pinning its cinematic future on.

Adapted from the first of a series of books by Mark Greaney, it’s meant to launch a franchise, and it’s directed by Marvel veterans the Russo brothers. It’s also the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made, though a huge part of that reported $200 million budget surely went to hefty payouts for Gosling (who hasn’t appeared in a movie since First Man in 2018), Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas. What’s left has been used to make something perfectly serviceable to leave on in the background while noodling on your phone, and I mean that as a compliment. Netflix’s previous attempt at an extravagantly priced star-driven action movie, Red Notice , felt like it was written by an AI and performed in front of green screens without ever requiring its stars to be in the same room. The Gray Man at least feels like a middling studio movie that wasn’t worth catching in theaters but that would comfortably fill an afternoon if you stumbled on it airing on cable.

He’s not actually very Bond-like, Six, despite the movie’s clear aspirations to be seen in that tradition. He falls somewhere between Jason Bourne and the title character in La Femme Nikita , a willing recruit to a secret program he doesn’t have a way to opt out of. When he’s first approached by a CIA bigwig named Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), he’s in the midst of serving a life sentence in prison. Fitzroy tells him he’ll be trained “to kill bad guys,” and he says yes. Cut to an 18-years-later title card and he’s in Bangkok about to rendezvous with agent Dani Miranda (de Armas) at the behest of a Langley up-and-comer named Carmichael ( Bridgerton ’s Regé-Jean Page), who turns out to have nefarious intentions. Six’s intentions are less clear. Like all assassins, apparently, he has a heart of gold, but it only emerges when his own survival is placed at risk due to interagency politicking. He has a Bourne-like capacity for brutality and for weathering serious injuries, and the movie has a tendency to throw him into situations where he has to fight hand-to-hand, which admittedly end up looking better than the shootout sequences. But he also has a very un-Bourne-like tendency to crack jokes.

The Gray Man , which was scripted by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely, is written like a comedy but never really played like one. Gosling laconically underdelivers wisecracks that would be unbearable if he leaned into them. “Where are you?” someone barks at him on the phone. “Emotionally?” he replies. I’ve missed him onscreen, and even when he’s operating in low-power mode, he makes enough unpredictable choices to be interesting. Evans makes up for him energy-wise and more, smirking his way through the role of the cartoonishly sociopathic Lloyd Hansen, a mustachioed private contractor hired by Carmichael whose preferred method of sending troops of armed men to shoot up very public space makes him seemingly unsuited for covert work. The movie spends a lot of time in a tonal purgatory where it’s never clear if it’s meant to be funny, and while its banter isn’t generally good enough for that to matter, it does end up undercutting the best gag, which is that Lloyd and Carmichael met not doing untoward fieldwork in the Balkans or something but at Harvard.

The plot, as much as there is one, involves a MacGuffin — a drive with incriminating evidence hidden inside a medallion — that takes the action from Turkey to Austria to the Czech Republic to Croatia with a stop in flashbacks to Hong Kong. De Armas is relegated again to a gal Friday role, with Alfre Woodard playing the small part of a retired CIA chief. Tamil celeb Dhanush is a mysterious mercenary in the kind of overtly pandering appearance that used to be reserved for Chinese stars meant to lure in international audiences (there’s no Netflix in China, but there is in India, a huge market the company has been struggling to capture). For all the movie’s resources, though, the big set pieces are depressingly incoherent. The Russos may have been responsible for one of the better fight scenes in the MCU, in the elevator in Captain America: The Winter Soldier , but here, they stage prolonged action sequences on a crashing plane and a moving tram that are boosted with sloppy computer-generated work and so little sense of where the characters are in relation to the spaces they’re in that there’s no tension at all.

Not that it matters. The Gray Man wraps up the way a TV pilot would, with shockingly little resolution and most of the characters returned to their starting positions to do this all over again in the inevitable sequel. It’s good enough for government work, but you understand why they might want to keep the numbers hush-hush.

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The Gray Man review: Russo Brothers' globe-trotting thriller delivers movie stars and mayhem

Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans go mano a mano as two improbably pretty assassins with no mercy (or relaxed-fit chinos) to spare.

He will strangle them in Hong Kong; he will kill them in Manilla. He leaves a trail of broken bones in Rome and an asteroid-size pile of rubble in Vienna. (Which seems like it should fall under some kind of UNESCO heritage laws, though who's got time for those?) Sierra Six ( Ryan Gosling ) is a government agent, but an extremely off-the-books one, which is why they call him the Gray Man: He's vapor, an assassin without a name or a past or a place he calls home. And, with the help of half of Hot Hollywood, he leaves a swath of destruction and fitted pants across several continents in the Russo Brothers ' latest slice of post-Marvel pandemonium (on Netflix July 22) — a maximalist action thriller that is almost comically violent, unfailingly glib, and intermittently very fun.

If you want backstory, you'll get it in one vanishingly brief early scene and a few fuzzy flashbacks later: Gosling's lone wolf was once a lowly young inmate imprisoned for murder until an unflappable fixer named Donald Fitzroy ( Billy Bob Thornton , an elder statesman here) came along with a better offer — join the C.I.A., and trade his wet-work skill set for freedom and unlimited travel opportunities. But when Six, as he's been code-named, takes down a target in a Bangkok nightclub, his mark's dying words make him question what cause he's actually serving after years of active duty. Are they having him eliminate his own coworkers?

There's a sympathetic fellow agent, Dani ( Ana de Armas ), to help him figure that out, and a puffed-up, unscrupulous supervisor, Denny Carmichichael (an amusingly snide Regé-Jean Page , freed from his Bridgerton britches) determined to end him before he gets the chance. To speed things up, Denny has grabbed Donald's tween-ish niece ( Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 's Julia Butters) as collateral and brought on a freelance mercenary called Lloyd Hansen ( Chris Evans ) to obliterate Six by any means necessary and retrieve all evidence of the C.I.A.'s dirty deeds.

There's a lot of chum in the water — the various teams dispatched to take down Six die like plankton, quick and anonymous — but not many small actors to fill out the supporting roles. Nearly every minor character in The Gray Man is played by someone interesting, from Alfre Woodard as a shrewd ex-department head and Narcos ' Wagner Moura as a squirrely informant with a fondness for knitting and oubliettes, to Bollywood star Dhanush as a dapper adversary and Game of Thrones' Jessica Henwick as a special-ops officer who might actually have a conscience.

But Evans, smirking like a catbird, is the movie's main antagonist, and his pairing with Gosling is the pretty-man Godzilla vs. Kong most viewers came to see. Though he's played Captain America for Anthony and Joe Russo many times over, most recently in Avengers: Endgame , the actor seems positively giddy every time he gets to flip to the role of, as some have fondly come to call him, America's A-hole. Here everything about Lloyd, from his fascist little mustache to his schoolyard taunts, delights him; against Six's wry cool-guy remove, he's the leering frat-boy jester, pretty much begging to be punched in that perfectly symmetrical face.

And the punches do come, in combat scenes so relentlessly kinetic and busy they make Fight Club feel like Tai Chi. Rendered largely in the bang-pow crunch of brute video-game force and tinged with slapstick comedy, the action unfolds in a series of wild, adrenalized set pieces — in a maze, at a hospital, on a disintegrating airplane — across global capitals that the Russos swap out as easily as Zoom backdrops. Gosling, tasked with playing the kind of man who kills indiscriminately but would probably also pause to free a kitten from a tree, brings a minor-key melancholy beneath the swollen soldier-of-fortune deltoids. He seems to know what we do: that title aside, this isn't the kind of movie interested in shades of gray. It's red-meat candy, a Bourne Identity for brains thoroughly trained in over-stimulation, and already long gone on summer holiday. Grade: B –

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'The Gray Man' review: Even on-screen assassins need something to believe in

Linda Holmes

Ryan Gosling as Six in The Gray Man. Paul Abell/Netflix hide caption

Ryan Gosling as Six in The Gray Man.

The Gray Man is very well-made, if unnervingly empty.

That's what the growth of stylish, hyper-violent, technically accomplished, skillfully produced, massively budgeted movies has done. It has cemented the primacy of an entire category of film that can do everything that could possibly be expected of it, everything it means to do, and can still feel made out of nothing. Cast with talented, capital-M-capital-S Movie Stars with the charisma to carry it – in this case, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans – a movie like The Gray Man can have a lot of pleasures. It can have cleverness, inventiveness, a wink to its embrace of extremely silly set pieces. But there's something that's just not there about it, an unnerving sense that if you unwound the whole thing layer after layer, you'd discover it's wrapped around only itself.

The Gray Man is out in select theaters on Friday, July 15, and on Netflix starting July 22.

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The setup, based on Mark Greaney's 2009 novel, is this: Years ago, to get out of a long prison sentence, the man we know as Six (Ryan Gosling) gave up his identity – name, history, family, connections – and became an assassin, an asset of the United States government, in exchange for his "freedom." He is part of one of those Impossible Mission Force-style teams, the glamour of which is based on the idea that there are limitations on what the government does in the light of day, and that the bravest bad-asses are the ones who ignore those limitations. Six begins the story being sent to kill a guy he doesn't know anything about, but during the mission, things get complicated, and he winds up on the run himself, on the wrong side of his own secret, violent, lawless, unaccountable organization. Whoops? (This basically happens to absolutely every participant in a force like this at some point.)

Six's chilly boss (Regé-Jean Page, just as hot in a suit and glasses as he was on Bridgerton ) wants him tracked down by any means necessary and brings in a private contractor to do the job. That contractor's name is Lloyd Hansen, and he is played by Chris Evans in an unflattering short haircut and a cheap, sleazy little mustache. Lloyd may have imposing arms (in both senses), and he may sometimes show the same flashes of wit that Evans brought to his role in Knives Out , but make no mistake: Both these guys are longtime hired killers, but he is the bad guy. Six is meant to be the good guy, just trying to survive and save Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), the retired mentor whose continuing safety is now being used as leverage against him. (Hansen is into straight-up torturing people, which we get to/have to watch, and which is one of the many things about the film that raises the question: Look around at the world; do we have to do this right now? )

There are a lot of lively, nicely done bits in The Gray Man : smart uses of reflections, a preposterous but propulsive sequence involving handcuffs and a bench, a solid running gag about the people who keep having to help Six not die, and an underutilized but still effective Ana de Armas doing a lot of very cool fighting. Gosling's dry, exhausted muttering and Evans' cheesy, sleazy, high-energy declarations are an effective matched set. The action doesn't feel phoned-in; it feels stylish, in its way, as does the "everything should look like a nightclub" lighting of much of the movie, including the parts that do not take place in nightclubs.

Rege-Jean Page as Carmichael and Ana de Armas as Dani Miranda. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022 Paul Abell/Netflix hide caption

But The Gray Man feels hollow, and it's not because it needs to be a character-driven drama. It's enough for the stakes to be all about good guys and bad guys; it really is! But in this case, everybody in the story is a merciless killer who does what they're told (we don't necessarily know what kinds of people Six has killed on request) and murders who they're told to murder, pretty much, and picking through the details to differentiate who's good and who's bad feels beside the point.

In the dynamic between Six and Hansen, the inspiration would seem to be Die Hard – with Hansen as the highly competent bad guy you almost root for – except that John McClane was also trying to save a building full of innocent people. Finding all of this unsatisfying is the kind of complaint that gets one tagged as a person who doesn't understand mindless action movies, but lots of mindless action movies don't suffer from this ailment. They find a way to feel built around something solid, whether it's a team or a mission or a particular purpose. Consider, if you will, the fast. Consider, as we must, the furious.

The Gray Man also can't quite work as a story of chaos among amoral chaos agents (the way, say, a mafia story can), because Six and Hansen don't have an existing relationship. In fact, most of these people don't have much in the way of relationships with each other, other than Six and his other mentor, played by Alfre Woodard. The relationship between the two of them feels instantly genuine and compelling, by far the most believable in the movie – but the time we spend with it is comically brief. If everybody is going to be off-the-books hired killers differentiated only at the margins, the stakes have to come from the individuals. Let's have some betrayals, some old wounds, some old arguments, some long-growing resentments. We've got Ryan Gosling and we've got Chris Evans and we've got Ana de Armas; we could even have some sex.

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There's something more interesting hovering around the edges of this project, as is often the case with creatively unsatisfying outings from talented people. The Gray Man is both a celebration of a certain kind of intoxicating, overcranked masculinity and, at times, a mockery of it. Lloyd is terrifying and merciless, but he's also ridiculous. And the basic structure of the film is that Six finds himself in situation after situation in which it appears that he cannot possibly escape (in the manner of James Bond or, if you will, MacGyver), and it repeatedly takes other people – specifically, women – to bail him out. There is a delicate balance in which Six is both a superhuman who survives the obviously unsurvivable, and a fallible guy who keeps getting got. Gosling and Evans both seem to be playing to this potential, to the preposterous manly showdown that neither of them really has the juice to win. But while that idea dances around the margins, the film comes back over and over to a more conventional, more muscular (literally) approach.

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What is missing here is a narrative engine. Call it "John Wick's puppy": the moment that provides even the thinnest thread of something else to care about besides killer versus killer. Of course, it's important to acknowledge that, as in John Wick , many fictional women, mostly wives and girlfriends but also the occasional daughter or colleague, have given their lives on- or off-screen so that men with guns can seem more human, which is also not great. Here, along those lines, you eventually get a vulnerable young girl imperiled, but by the time that happens, it seems wildly cynical.

The directors of The Gray Man are Joe and Anthony Russo, whom you might know from making Marvel movies ( Captain America: The Winter Soldier , Captain America: Civil War , Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame ) that grossed something like six billion dollars worldwide. What they have learned about how to stage a big action sequence with the benefit of a huge budget (reportedly $200 million) shows here. While this is far more bloody than an MCU outing, it's also solidly choreographed, if more than a little silly. It's the kind of movie where a fight takes place around the tubes that are firing off a fireworks display just because ... sure. Why not? Looks cool! It's the kind of movie where a guy in a fight starts throwing around red smoke bombs because ... sure. Looks cool! (I should note: I went to a theatrical screening. Because this is a spectacle, it will be interesting to see how it holds up when seen mostly at home.)

Nothing here seems accidentally or poorly done; these are choices. With all the effort that's gone into the action, the most conspicuous issues with execution are actually in the dialogue. While there are some funny lines, particularly for the two leads, there are also places where a line that's clearly meant to pack a punch sounds like a first draft that needed a couple more passes. You can tell what the line is supposed to do – you are cued by sound and pacing and pauses – but it doesn't quite do it.

Wishing is not critique. It may not be, in the strictest sense, criticism to simply wish everyone involved in a project like this had taken their considerable talent, skill, power, money, imagination, and so forth and done something else. The Gray Man seems to be exactly what it means to be, and in the moment, it's often fun. But there's something eerily vacant in its assembly. Maybe even trained movie assassins need something to believe in.

‘The Gray Man’ Review Roundup: A ‘Throwback’ Action Movie That’s ‘Listless’ and Full of ‘Tropes and Cliches’

By Sasha Urban

Sasha Urban

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Wednesday night was the premiere of “The Gray Man,” the Russo Brothers ‘ ambitious action thriller that, with a budget of $200 million, is the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made. On Thursday, the review embargo for the film lifted, bringing with it a generally underwhelmed response from critics.

The film stars Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as Court Gentry and Lloyd Hansen. Gentry is on the run from Hansen after coming into possession of top-secret CIA information, and Hansen is unforgiving in his efforts to chase Gentry down. Ana de Armas also stars as Dani Miranda, alongside Regé-Jean Page, Jessica Henwick, Julia Butters, Dhanush, Alfre Woodard and Billy Bob Thornton.

Overall, most critics agree that “The Gray Man” is an over-the-top attempt by Netflix to capture the magic of blockbuster thrillers like the 007 movies. Gosling, Evans, de Armas and their co-stars show their talents, but the majority of reviews criticize its cliched script and breakneck pacing. Despite some issues, a few critics conceded that even with its flaws, the film is still a fun watch, and the strong ensemble makes it worth a viewer’s time to see what this big-budget blockbuster is really about.

Read some highlights of what critics are saying below:

Popular on Variety

Variety’s Peter Debruge :

There’s nothing terribly original about the storytelling. Take a little of “Shooter,” a lot of “John Wick,” add a dash of Jason Bourne, shaken (but not stirred) into the license-to-kill formula, and you’ve got the basic idea. What makes “The Gray Man” exciting — and let’s not beat around the bush: This is the most exciting original action property Netflix has delivered since “Bright” — are the shades the ensemble bring to their characters and the little ways in which the Russos come through where those other films fell short.

IndieWire’s David Ehrlich :

So begins a “blockbuster” so big that you can actually feel the price of your Netflix subscription going up with each new scene, this listless simulacrum of a summer action movie bouncing from one lavish Asian or European location to the next as it searches in vain for the streamer’s first bonafide popcorn franchise. The algorithmic results don’t reflect well on the Russo brothers’ directing chops — their monumental spandex operas seldom required and never displayed the kind of muscular imagination needed to stage Michael Bay-like fight sequences — but “The Gray Man” is even more damning for Netflix itself, particularly so far as it epitomizes the streamer’s penchant for producing mega-budget movies that feel like glorified deepfakes of classic multiplex fare.

The AV Club’s Luke Y. Thompson :

For the most part, Netflix’s The “Gray Man” is a damn delight. It’s a throwback to the days when studios could safely rely on throwing a couple of A-listers at an action script and some big explosions, give it a competent director, and have a hit on their hands. Frequently more fun and escapist than some of the recent James Bond films, it’s also based on a book character (though not highly advertised as such). Ryan Gosling plays Mark Greaney’s freelance assassin and former CIA operative Court Gentry, a name the movie largely eschews in favor of his code designation, Sierra Six. For Gosling fans whose favorite movie was Drive, this feels like a slightly pumped up, dumbed-down version of that character, with significantly more to say about how he doesn’t actually have more to say.

Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt :

But Evans, smirking like a catbird, is the movie’s main antagonist, and his pairing with Gosling is the pretty-man Godzilla vs. Kong most viewers came to see. Though he’s played Captain America for Anthony and Joe Russo many times over, most recently in “Avengers: Endgame,” the actor seems positively giddy every time he gets to flip to the role of, as some have fondly come to call him, America’s A-hole. Here everything about Lloyd, from his fascist little mustache to his schoolyard taunts, delights him; against Six’s wry cool-guy remove, he’s the leering frat-boy jester, pretty much begging to be punched in that perfectly symmetrical face.

IGN’s Siddhant Adlakha :

The majority of the cast is similarly shackled by the edit’s need to zip from scene to scene without a lasting human moment. De Armas isn’t so much doe-eyed as she is a deer in the headlights; she’s a more than capable actress, but she struggles here to so much as spin a questioning glance from the story’s abyss. Even poor Jessica Henwick, who plays Carmichael’s second in command, is saddled only with occasional objections and observations about Hansen’s destructive methods, in order to give the film the appearance of conscience or dilemma — the CIA needs to assassinate people the “right” way, quietly and legally; how brave — until “The Gray Man” recalls that Henwick may be useful in some potential sequel, granting her a last-second usefulness that only serves to rob tension from existing scenes.

Forbes’ Scott Mendelson :

Gosling says and does little of entertainment value, which is more about the screenplay that positions him as a generic action figure. Ditto Ana de Armas as Gosling’s reluctant tag-along gal. Evans chews up the scenery, but most of his one-liners and zingers come off as preordained memes and gif moments that exist in a vacuum. All three of them do little more than remind us of better movies where they played similar characters. Billy Bob Thornton and Alfre Woodard, playing two elder agents trying to survive with dignity as the world passes them by, do their best to elevate their material. Rising star Julia Butters holds her own even though she is quickly made a full-time hostage/damsel. Perhaps by default, the attempt by this film to recapture the glory days of the Hollywood action movie can’t help but revert to past-their-time tropes and cliches.

USA Today’s Brian Truitt :

In their post-Marvel work, the Russos have notably given their superhero stars room to stretch. Last year’s ambitious “Cherry” allowed Tom Holland to flex some dramatic muscles beyond getting in a Spider-Man suit, and “The Gray Man” lets Evans deliciously explore his wicked side. Yes, he is the best of the “Chrises,” and him doing a complete 180 from virtuous Captain America proves that once again: Lloyd yells at underlings, goes punch for punch and snark for snark with Gosling, and absolutely owns a plethora of clever zingers like, “If you want to make an omelet, you gotta kill some people.” If you’re craving an overblown action movie, “The Gray Man” is probably worth a stream for him alone, a devilish villain playing an otherwise forgettable spy game.

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The Gray Man review – fun but frenetic secret agent caper from the Russo brothers

Ryan Gosling plays a covert operative on the run from his former employers in this excessive assault weapon of a movie

T he Russo brothers are not known for a muted style of film-making. But even by their usual bombastic standards – and take into account these are the men behind the Marvel cataclysms Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame – their latest, the Netflix-produced espionage thriller The Gray Man , is cacophonous on every level. The score, what you can hear over the barrage of heavy artillery, sounds as though it was played with hammers and industrial machinery. Then there’s the visual noise, a clutter of blurry agitation, wheeling crane shots and rapid fire editing, which at times almost drowns out the action itself. Which is a pity, because the action is the main point of this pumped-up assault weapon of a movie. And, for all the sensory overload – it’s a bit like being trapped inside a first-person shooter challenge being played by a 12-year-old gaming prodigy – The Gray Man is undeniably entertaining.

The eponymous Gray Man is Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling), a highly trained and seemingly unkillable covert operative who finds himself the target of his former employers. Think Bourne in a Drive -style jacket. He finds a wary acolyte in Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas), a CIA agent who is forced to go rogue. Both are pitted against Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans, every bit as comfortable in the sociopathic torture-connoisseur role as he is in his selection of slightly too-tight polo shirts). Helicopters are crashed, grenades popped and supporting characters slaughtered in Prague, Croatia, Hong Kong and in mid-air somewhere over Turkey. It’s excessive throughout, but not least in the budgets for pyrotechnics, locations and, given Evans’s snug trouser choices, probably Lycra.

In cinemas now and on Netflix from 22 July

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The Gray Man Review: Spy Vs. Spy

• The cast is great
• The action sequences pack plenty of spectacle
• The plot features plenty of satisfying spy-movie twists and turns
• The action feels undercut by visual choices
• Much of the dialogue is formulaic
• Too many different visual elements make for a jarring viewing experience

Though their career has showcased a versatility that's led them into the realms of acclaimed TV comedy and crime thrillers, Joe and Anthony Russo are best known to global audiences for spectacle. For better or worse, no matter what they do with the rest of their body of work, they will always be the guys who gave us the two-part finale to Marvel Studios' "Infinity Saga," and the tarmac clash at the core of "Captain America: Civil War." For the average moviegoer, they are Big Movie Guys, now and forever.

So it makes sense that Netflix would want to recruit the Russos — and their Marvel screenwriting partners Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely — for "The Gray Man," the streamer's latest attempt to launch an action cinema franchise that could be the streaming equivalent of Universal's "Fast Saga" or MGM's Bond films. It also makes sense that the Russos would be drawn to "The Gray Man" as a way to leverage their public reputation into a slightly different kind of filmmaking. Removed from the CG-laden battlefields of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the duo makes a clear attempt to apply their spectacle-laden history to a more grounded, human story while also taking the opportunity to jet across the globe for what might be Netflix's most expensive film ever.

The question, after all of that, is whether or not it paid off. Does "The Gray Man" capitalize on the Russos' cinematic past while also granting them a new blockbuster future? Does the star-packed cast deliver the kind of charm and energy required to carry a movie of this scope forward into franchise territory? Does the team that carried so much weight at Marvel still have what it takes to go this big in another genre?

The answers to these questions don't necessarily come easy. Though it's an enjoyable ride packed with movie star swagger, "The Gray Man" is a noticeably rocky road, and makes you wonder if the Russos can ever carry the same magic to the screen without the sparkle of Marvel's stable of heroes in their corner.

In the gray

The "gray man" of the title is Court Gentry ( Ryan Gosling ), an incarcerated criminal who's recruited in the early 2000s to join Sierra, a secretive government program that recruits criminals to serve as spies and assassins for off-the-books operations (think "Suicide Squad" with a little less superpowered mayhem). Nearly two decades later, Gentry is an internationally infamous operative known as "Sierra Six," who's deadly, efficient, and very good at staying hidden, working "in the gray" between the regulated CIA and the world of freelance criminals.

Those skills all come in handy when an operation in Thailand leaves him with a piece of secret CIA intel he was never meant to have, intel that points to a certain higher-up within the agency ( Regé-Jean Page ) as a shadowy criminal mastermind with a laundry list of sins. With that intel in his possession, Six finds himself a wanted man with a crazed, fellow infamous assassin named Lloyd Hansen ( Chris Evans ) on his trail. It's a game of international cat and mouse, made more complicated by Hansen's willingness to exploit any advantage he can gain against Six, including the gray man's mentor ( Billy Bob Thornton ) and the mentor's ailing niece ( Julia Butters ).

Adapted by the Russos and Markus and McFeely from Mark Greaney's series-launching novel of the same name, "The Gray Man" is packed with tropes and situations any longtime spy movie fan will recognize. You've got the deadly operative with a secret heart of gold, the villainous outsider willing to work beyond any agency's rules and regulations, the attractive fellow agent ( Ana De Armas ) willing to stick her neck out for our hero, and of course, plenty of double crosses, left turns, and gun battles as Six realizes every assassin and bounty hunter in the world has been called in to bring him down. The presence of these tropes is not a bad thing, particularly when they're delivered well and filtered through the presence of formidable actors. It's all in the execution, and it's there that "The Gray Man" encounters some difficulty.

A messy mission

On a pure plot level, "The Gray Man" is an action director's dream, a globe-trotting adventure film that breaks out into fight scenes and gun battles every few minutes and packs in no shortage of squibs, explosives, and cannon fodder stunt performers along the way. It's an opportunity for a grand showcase of every action movie trick in the book, and the Russos are clearly having a ball throwing just about everything they can think of on the screen. There's a sense of exuberance in "The Gray Man" that carries it forward in even its roughest moments, a feeling that we're watching two boys play with the world's most expensive toys, and that adds to the film's overall sense of fun.

Of course, some of those toys end up doing the film a disservice. Removed from the relatively unified style of MCU films, the Russos feel unmoored and unfocused, often at times when it counts the most to make "The Gray Man" land. Fight choreography that was clearly carefully crafted by the stunt team is often left obscured in a haze of smoke, neon, or darkness, combined with somewhat frustrating editing that limits the visceral intensity the sequences were aiming for. Drone shots that zip through the frame in a frenzy seem to come from nowhere with jarring frequency, ripping you away from characters and out of the moment despite a clear intention to convey both intensity and a sense of geography. That sense of throwing everything at this film ultimately robs it of a sense of visual unity, giving key sequences a disjointed feeling that leaves you off kilter and detached from the heart of the story.

The good news, though, is that the Russos got honest-to-goodness stars to lead this film, and even in its weakest moments they manage to land quite a bit of what they set out to achieve. Gosling works the mysterious stranger magic he showcased in "Drive" to great effect, and combines it with a hint of the misanthropic dark comedy he deployed in "The Nice Guys." Evans is plainly having a blast being the bad guy, trash 'stache and all, and De Armas gets to take some of the action chops she showed in "No Time to Die" and expand them into a meatier if sometimes unforgiving role. There's a sense throughout the film that, even if the cast isn't enjoying every minute of it, they're at least very good at looking like they did, and that helps the whole story immensely.

So, will "The Gray Man" launch a bona fide action powerhouse at Netflix? Have the Russos succeeded in putting their blockbuster jet fuel into another franchise? It's too early to tell, and naturally, it depends more on Netflix's mythic algorithm than on actual quality. Happily, though, despite its missteps — and there are quite a few scattered throughout this film — "The Gray Man" succeeds as two hours of action movie explosiveness, driven by an engaging cast and a sense of spectacle that, while not as fine-tuned as we might like, is still offering plenty of bang for your buck... or your two hours on the couch.

'The Gray Man' hits Netflix on Friday, July 22.

The Gray Man (2022)

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The Gray Man Reviews

It's like somebody rabbit-punching your brain for the best part of two hours, and there's a certain enjoyability in that.

Full Review | Feb 7, 2024

The Russo brothers’ supposed answer to the Bond franchise is a product of popcorn entertainment that is defined by giving the audience what they want and that’s just it.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2023

Netflix’s The Gray Man is its Most Expensive and Emptiest Star Vehicle

In short, the movie looks like someone painted over each frame of the film with urine. The whole thing has this sickly yellow tint to it that's even more off-putting than the usual teal-and-orange colour grading of most big-budget blockbusters.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 29, 2023

Given Netflix’s expenditures and the star pedigree on screen, audiences deserve — and should expect — more.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 9, 2023

If not an all-timer within a tried-and-tested genre, The Gray Man is a strong showcase for its leads, their screen presence and ability to carry the source material which can be overloading with exposition on occasion.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2023

A flat out AWESOME! An action packed spy thrill ride that mixes the best of Winter Soldier, Fast/Furious, & John Wick. Ryan Gosling is that ACTION HERO…

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The Gray Man is just expensive, glamour-less, and unsharp.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 25, 2023

If you've seen the trailer, you've basically seen the film; it is an underwhelming affair that sounds great on paper, but isn't executed well enough to be memorable.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 24, 2023

The Gray Man is a wannabe John Wick lost in a tonally incohesive script. You’ve seen this movie before you even press play.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

The Russo Brothers return with a star-studded action thriller in Netflix’s The Gray Man that’s great where the heart is concerned but nothing special overall.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2023

The Gray Man is a sad affair. As a fan of Ryan Gosling, as a fan of Ana De Armas, as a fan of Dhanush, as a fan of action cinema, this is sad.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 20, 2023

We begin a 129 min journey jam-packed with quippy retorts, gratuitous violence and a hail of bullets that leap you chuckling and wiping tears of laughter from your eyes. That being said, The Gray Man is entirely devoid of substance.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jul 20, 2023

Unfortunately this did not flow for me. Gosling on paper seemed to be a very interesting character, but instead his character don't have real progression or likability. Then the action just wasn't up to par with what we've seen this amazing directors do

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 26, 2022

Despite its fast-paced rhythm and the caliber of the talent in front and behind the camera, it ends up being an unimaginative and formulaic spy flick. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 5, 2022

What I also loved about this movie was the lack of an unneeded romantic subplot, and the fact that all the females in the cast weren’t brainless skirts simply there to fix the men or let them save their life.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 9, 2022

If you can remember much about it 15 minutes after watching, you'll have a stronger impression than it made on me.

Full Review | Sep 7, 2022

An unapologetically pure action movie, and as such, tremendously entertaining.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2022

A movie devoted to fists, guns, and kicking as much as the “Fast and Furious” series showcases speeding cars.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 6, 2022

An A-grade budget trying to wallpaper over a B-grade script.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 31, 2022

The Gray Man Review

15 Jul 2022

The Gray Man

After the misshapen but fascinating left-turn of their last film, Cherry , Joe and Anthony Russo are back with a bang — several, in fact, all loud and expensive-looking. The directing brothers responsible for the remarkable one-two punch of Infinity War and Endgame return to blockbuster cinema in fine fettle with this assured, energetic, consistently compelling caper.

It has all the trappings of a modern espionage action-thriller: there is an air-mile-heavy international itinerary, a USB drive MacGuffin, a web of shady conspiracies that goes all the way to the top — and at the centre of it all, a gun-for-hire struggling with what it means to be a good man. Based on the novels by Mark Greaney, the temptation to make Bourne or Bond comparisons are all there, but the Russos’ regular screenwriters, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, are self-aware enough to do it for you. Their script, which leans on the genre’s tropes without escaping them, gently leavens any overt seriousness with the occasional grenade of glibness.

Key to that balancing of tones are the film’s opposing A-list leads, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans. Very much two sides of the same incredibly handsome coin, their respective allegiances are handily signposted by facial hair (to wit: beard = goodie; moustache = baddie). Both are electrically watchable — Evans, in particular, gleefully pisses on Captain America’s legacy to portray the kind of villain that even Thanos would consider a bit rude. His Lloyd is really just a weapons-grade asshole, who trades in, by his own admission, “bad ethics and zero impulse control”. He’s a ton of fun to watch.

Gosling is still effortlessly good, by turns winkingly charming and brutally convincing.

Gosling is more reserved by comparison — it’s another taciturn role where he uses his preternatural looks as a deadpan shield — but he’s still effortlessly good, by turns winkingly charming and brutally convincing, sprinkling pathos and humanity into his hardened CIA off-books killer. As far as first-time action-blockbuster roles go, Gosling looks like he’s been dodging fireballs for years.

Which is handy, because he has to do a lot of that. There are nine giant action sequences scattered throughout the running time, featuring explosive fireworks (in the opening fight, literally so), across planes, trams and automobiles. While you might feel the CGI in some moments, the Russos’ action here is more Winter Soldier than Infinity War — lots of ground-level, stylishly shot, muscular hand-to-hand combat.

There’s so much, in fact, that it’s really an action film first, spy thriller second. Anyone expecting a John le Carré potboiler should look elsewhere. There’s not much room for character work outside of those lead two, either — Ana de Armas isn’t given the opportunity to steal scenes in the way she did in No Time To Die . But while it might sometimes feel like relatively superficial entertainment, it is undeniably damned entertaining, and confidently executed. If sequels are coming, as has been hinted, we’re ready for the next 49 shades of Gray.

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‘The Gray Man’ Pits Ryan Gosling Against Chris Evans in a slick spy thriller

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo return to action blockbuster filmmaking for the first time since their triumphant ‘Avengers’ movies. But does their new spy pic deliver?

Ryan Gosling as Six in 'The Gray Man.' Photo: Stanislav Honzik/Netflix © 2022.

Arriving on Netflix July 22nd, ‘ The Gray Man ’ represents the return of directors Joe and Anthony Russo ’ to the sort of big-scale action entertainment they brought to screens with their Marvel movies, including ‘ Avengers: Infinity War ’rand ‘ Avengers: Endgame ’.

Following a detour into character drama with ‘ Cherry ’ (which wasn’t as well received as their giant MCU entries) and producing other action fare such as ‘ Extraction ’, they’re back behind the camera, roping in the former Captain America ( Chris Evans ) to star alongside Ryan Gosling .

Tearing a page from the likes of the ‘ Bourne ’ and ‘ Bond ’ stories, ‘The Gray Man’ adapts the novels by Mark Greaney. Here, the directors recruited their old ‘ Captain America ’ and ‘Avengers’ movie writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to work on the script alongside Joe Russo himself.

‘The Gray Man’ introduces us to Sierra Six (Gosling), plucked from prison years ago by Billy Bob Thornton ’s Fitzroy to become the titular “gray” operative, working for the CIA outside the boundaries of the law and using any means necessary. He’s a killer when needed, but while he’s supremely efficient at his job, he’s also conflicted as to the marks left on his soul.

(L to R) Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen, Jessica Henwick as Suzanne Brewer in 'The Gray Man.' Photo: Paul Abell/Netflix © 2022.

On a mission to take out what his current handlers (including Regé-Jean Page’s Carmichael and Jessica Henwick ’s Suzanne Brewer) assure him is a very bad guy, Six stumbles upon a drive holding information about a massive conspiracy.

Soon, he’s on the run for his life, as his bosses really don’t want that information to get out into the world. To stop Six, they hire Lloyd Hansen (Evans), an ethics-free CIA washout who has reinvented himself as a private contractor, willing to do anything for money.

He, in turn, looks to manipulate Six by leaning on (and torturing) Fitzroy and the older man’s niece, Claire ( Julia Butters ).

With a variety of dangerous thugs hunting him down, Six has his wits and the occasional support of fellow fighter Dani Miranda ( Ana de Armas ) to save his skin and reveal what he’s discovered.

(L to R) Chris Evans, Anthony Russo (Director-Producer), Joe Russo (Director-Producer-Writer) on the set of 'The Gray Man.' Photo: Paul Abell/Netflix © 2022.

The Russos bring all that they’ve learned working on giant Marvel movies to bear on this one, and it shows – the camera weaves and ducks (drone shots aplenty) into action scenes and the fights are carried off with aplomb and knowing humor. One moment finds de Armas’ Miranda grousing about Six tossing her an empty gun without letting her know, leading to a debate as to whether you should ever throw someone a loaded weapon.

What does feel lacking here are truly developed characters. While you don’t usually come to an action thriller for deep drama, most of the people on display here are ciphers rather than fully developed people (and yes, their MCU entries had several movies in which to flesh out their people, not to mention an extensive comic book background).

The dialogue, too, is also strictly thriller movie standard: characters growl hard-boiled lines about getting “bravo team in here” or lobbing put-downs at each other.

In its central pair, though, they do at least have a couple of powerhouse performers who are clearly having a blast (which also describes several of the set pieces). Gosling is a soulful, darkly charming lead who does at least have a little bit of a backstory with his prison past, though his daddy issue origin story is hardly the freshest idea in the world.

Chris Evans in 'The Gray Man.' Photo: Paul Abell/Netflix © 2022.

As for Evans, he’s shrugging off the stalwart Steve Rogers to play an even darker, smarmier character than his ‘ Knives Out ’ role. With a terrible mustache and a massive ego, Hansen is a worthy rival, one who has fun being awful to people. He’s also handed some of the better lines of the movie, including “if you want to make an omelet, you gotta kill some people.”

Everyone else is at least dependable – Butters brings some life to what is otherwise a thankless damsel in distress, while Thornton brings strong paternal figure energy crossed with no-nonsense attitude to Fitzroy.

Despite the flair and the passion on display, though, it all starts to feel a little generic at times, and early on the editing is distractingly swift, the footage sliced apart to such a degree as to give even the likes of Michael Bay nightmares.

Running on rails through its story from one action beat to the next with barely a pause, ‘The Gray Man’ can start to feel like a video game, Six battling against each threat, proving that he can get out of any situation, even when the odds are against him.

(L to R) Ana de Armas as Dani Miranda, and Ryan Gosling as Six in 'The Gray Man.' Photo: Paul Abell/Netflix © 2022.

There are action cliches aplenty and some sequences that feel like the filmmaking team just wanted to homage or top some of their favorite movies, resulting in a product that sometimes becomes less than the sum of its parts.

Yet there’s no denying the energy of the movie, nor the sheer appeal of two movie stars playing spies. And you’re in no doubt that a lot has been spent to make this one as big as possible – it hops around the globe and featuring the sort of massive set-pieces few other franchises (and make no mistake, this is an attempt to launch a new one) can pull off.

Though ‘The Gray Man’ can’t quite replicate the visceral thrills and emotional impact of, say, ‘Avengers: Endgame’, it certainly manages to deliver on the spectacle. It’s never going to probe the deeper levels of governmental responsibility in an increasingly dangerous world, but that’s not the point here – the movie wants to make you fear for Six and cheer when he survives, say, having to jump out of a plane without a parachute.

Zero wheels are re-invented here, yet the film offers sleek thrills, well-shot stunts and star charisma in abundance.

‘The Gray Man’ receives 4 out of 5 stars.

Ryan Gosling in 'The Gray Man.' Photo: Paul Abell/Netflix © 2022. © 2022 Netflix, Inc.

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Review: 'The Gray Man' is only good enough to rank as watchable

"Brainless" is the word that comes up most often in reviews of "The Gray Man."

"Brainless" is the word that comes up most often in reviews of "The Gray Man," as if an intellectual workout is what we're all looking for in summer action escapism. Huh?

For what it is -- a high-octane, pow-pow-pow fronted by A-listers Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans -- this baby delivers.

But is pow enough? For Netflix, currently experiencing a subscriber downturn, "The Gray Man" is an expensive gamble with the suits spending -- gulp! -- $200 million (a record for them) to win back audiences like it did with the two-series punch of "Squid Game" and "Stranger Things."

MORE: Ryan Gosling talks 'The Gray Man' and embracing his 'Kenaissance'

Can a single movie do the same? It's doubtful. But "The Gray Man," based on 12 bestselling page-turners by Mark Greaney, wants to build a franchise starring Gosling as CIA assassin Sierra Six. "007 was taken," teases Six -- real name Court Gentry (I'm not kidding) -- just to show what kind of franchise Netflix has in mind.

Good luck with that. Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors, give equal banter time to Evans, the do-gooder Captain America in four of their marvelous Marvel "Avengers" epics. And Evans lets it rip playing against type as boo-hiss sadist Lloyd Hansen, a sociopath who prides himself on torturing anyone, including kids, to get what he wants.

How disappointing that all he wants is one of those thumb drives wrapped in a gold amulet that would implicate higher-ups in lowdown dirty business. I know, the plot's old enough to qualify for AARP membership. But it's a kick to watch Gosling play it cool while Evans, in full psycho mode, insults him as "a Ken doll," the very role Gosling will play in the film version of "Barbie."

You won't find a better cast of overqualified actors anywhere. There's Billy Bob Thornton as Donald Fitzroy, the idea man behind the Sierra program in which convicted felons are turned into undercover CIA killers (gray men) in exchange for their freedom. And watch out for "Bridgerton" heartthrob Regé-Jean Page as shady CIA group chief Denny Carmichael.

MORE: Review: Chris Hemsworth is sensational in 'Thor: Love and Thunder'

Special praise is also due to Ana de Armas -- so good as the uber-Bond girl for Daniel Craig in "No Time to Die" -- as fellow agent Dani Miranda. She and Gosling provide much-needed sexy time in a movie that's all too eager to play it safe instead of fast and loose.

But, boy, can "The Gray Man" globe trot. You can see every penny of that mega-budget as the movie races through Thailand, Berlin, Croatia, Vienna and Azerbaijan, including a massive fist fight on a plane in freefall and a stopover in Prague where Six manages to wipe out an army of assassins while handcuffed to a park bench. Sweet.

And just in case you're worrying that "The Gray Man" doesn't have a heart, the Russo brothers sneak in a subplot involving the kidnapping by Lloyd of Fitzroy's 12-year-old niece, played by "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" scene-stealer Julia Butters.

Let's face it, "The Gray Man" doesn't add up to much more than a pair of up-for-anything superstars trying to breathe life into an uninspired collection of combat cliches. That Gosling and Evans sometimes succeed makes "The Gray Man" good enough to rank as watchable.

But even in these inflationary times, shouldn't 200 million bucks buy us more than "good enough"?

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The gray man, common sense media reviewers.

Spy flick has violent action, standard storyline.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Very violent, but courage and perseverance are sho

Six is a killer, but he has an empathetic backgrou

Characters of color (played by Alfre Woodard, Regé

Descriptions of violence and torture, including do

Lloyd mentions finding every person that Six has e

Language includes "s--t," "s--tty," "a--hole," "as

Bubblicious chewing gum, Skittles.

Scenes during a rowdy New Year's Eve party that in

Parents need to know that The Gray Man is a secret agent action-thriller movie starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as men who get caught up in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game. There's lots of violence and references to violence. Scenes include torture, body horror, gun violence, explosions, and domestic…

Positive Messages

Very violent, but courage and perseverance are shown as key elements to staying true to yourself and helping others in need. Integrity is presented as a positive defining attribute of a person, even those who might be unsavory.

Positive Role Models

Six is a killer, but he has an empathetic background and seeks to save those in need, showing integrity. Six also perseveres to save a young girl and shows courage even when his life is on the line.

Diverse Representations

Characters of color (played by Alfre Woodard, Regé-Jean Page, Jessica Henwick, Ana de Armas, and Danush) have influential but not particularly substantial roles. Portrayal of women leaves something to be desired. Dani, Suzanne, and Margaret come across as strong women on the surface, but Dani and Margaret have relatively inconsequential roles, and Margaret sacrifices herself for a male character. Suzanne is portrayed as incompetent at her job and is often undermined and disrespected by her male peers.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Descriptions of violence and torture, including domestic violence. Scenes showing domestic violence, torture, murder, gunfights, explosions, and car crashes. Scenes with body horror (fingernail pulling) and romanticizing a violent lifestyle.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Lloyd mentions finding every person that Six has ever slept with.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language includes "s--t," "s--tty," "a--hole," "ass," "d--k," "jackass," and "f--k." Exclamatory use of "Chrissakes," "Jesus Christ," "oh my God." Ableist language ("morons").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Scenes during a rowdy New Year's Eve party that includes drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Gray Man is a secret agent action-thriller movie starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as men who get caught up in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game. There's lots of violence and references to violence. Scenes include torture, body horror, gun violence, explosions, and domestic violence. While characters demonstrate perseverance, courage, and integrity, the movie could also be seen as romanticizing a violent lifestyle. Characters use strong language ("f--k," "s--t," and more). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (10)
• Kids say (14)

Based on 10 parent reviews

The Russo Brothers Continue Delivering Schlock Since Avengers

Great to watch with friends, what's the story.

THE GRAY MAN tells a cat-and-mouse story involving Six ( Ryan Gosling ), a man hired to become a secret agent for the U.S. government who's later thought to be a liability. In order to neutralize him, Denny Carmichael ( Regé-Jean Page ), the leader of a secretive organization within the CIA, hires rogue contract killer Lloyd Hansen ( Chris Evans ) to take Six out, putting Six's friend and mentor Fitzroy ( Billy Bob Thornton ) and sickly niece Claire (Julia Butters) at risk.

Is It Any Good?

The Gray Man is more a series of great parts than an enthralling whole. It features solid performances by Gosling and Thornton, but the true gem of the movie is Evans, who transforms from Marvel's wholesome Captain America into a sadistic, gleeful, disturbingly charismatic villain. His performance will make you want to see him cast as villains more often, since his good guy looks and charm provide another layer of sinister to evil characters.

The film is a bit of a letdown in terms of racial and gender diversity. On paper, The Gray Man has both characters of color and strong women in potentially substantial roles. But while Page and Alfre Woodard are the standouts in this regard, that has more to do with their personal charisma than with what's written on the page. And even though Ana de Armas plays an agent in the field like Six, her character, Dani, is less defined than his -- and quite bland. Similarly, Jessica Henwick doesn't have much to work with as Suzanne, a CIA agent working under Denny who's constantly belittled by both him and Lloyd. Overall, The Gray Man is a standard-issue spy film that goes in circles with regard to characters' motivations. If you like seeing cars crash and people fight, then this film is for you (as long as you can hang in there for its two-hour-plus run time), but those looking for an engaging story are more likely to find satisfaction in individual performances.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how violence is portrayed in the film. Is it glorified? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

How did Six's past affect his present? Is he an empathetic character, despite his actions and choices?

How does Six show perseverance and courage ? Why are those important character strengths?

How are women portrayed in the film? Are the portrayals helpful, or harmful?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 15, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : July 22, 2022
• Cast : Ryan Gosling , Chris Evans , Billy Bob Thornton , Regé-Jean Page
• Directors : Anthony Russo , Joe Russo
• Inclusion Information : Indigenous actors, Black actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Character Strengths : Courage , Integrity , Perseverance
• Run time : 122 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense sequences of strong violence, and strong language
• Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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