The Grey Advert

This Russo's action flick has all the ingredients of a top tier spy thriller but will leave you feeling like you've just watched an extended trailer for other films they want to make in the world of the "Grey Man".

Ryan Gosling plays Sierra 6 (yes the Sierras are basically 00 agents with the twist they all used to be criminals) and is ideal casting as the sort of ass kicking man of few words this type of film is built around. All the archetypes you would expect are also present and played well by a stellar cast. Chris Evans is unhinged antagonist, Billy Bob Thornton is retired mentor, Rege-Jean Page is crooked politicain and Ana De Armas is the good agent caught in the middle. The plot is just as cookie cutter, involving Gossling being hunted by the people he used to work, computer files nobody was meant to see and hostages needing rescued.

Of course, all these things are tropes for a reason and done well (like they are here) equal an enjoyable movie. And the Grey Man is an enjoyable movie, with exciting, well excecuted set pieces and great looking globetrotting location shots. It gets pretty ridiculous, with CIA affiliated Chris Evans ordering his men to gun down police officers in allied countries but thats all part of the fun.

Rather less fun is being left with a massively unsatisfying ending. The film is far too interested in trying to set up an extended universe (guess the Russos just cant help themselves) and as a result is afraid to resolve anything. This has the opposite result to the one intented as its hard to be excited about more stories in a generic spy world when they can't even finish one. Want to find out who the "Old Man" is? Want to see more of the "Lone Wolf"? Not now I don't.

Essentially, your enjoyment of The Grey Man will depend largely on how you take things being mostly the same when the credits roll as they were twenty minutes in. If that doesn't bother you this is a fun caper well worth a couple of hours.

Six out of ten on the greyscale.

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