The Gray Man Review: Just Another Thursday

If you rate your action movies by how closely they connect to Taken, then you most definitely will enjoy The Gray Man. It doesn’t have Liam Neeson, but it has fight scenes, chasing scenes in well-known cities, and saving family members.

Just like in Taken, there is a good guy, Six (Ryan Gosling), a bad guy, Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), and a family member in need of saving, Claire (Julia Butters). Although the family ties aren’t blood-related, you will find yourself rooting for this reunion from the beginning.

Sadly, the reunion will seem more and more hopeless as explosives go off, cities get destroyed, and the hero gets shot or stabbed. Lloyd Hansen is for sure one of the most fun villains to watch in 2022.

Note: This review contains spoilers for The Gray Man.

Chris Evans’ fans will definitely be surprised by his character. He is not your typical Captain America, good boy, trying to save the world. Quite the opposite — he doesn’t care about who he hurts.

This shift in his career is certainly a good one as his portrayal of Lloyd Hansen is memorable. He is a sarcastic, super confident, bad boy who doesn’t believe he can be defeated. Some of the best lines of the movie happen when others are interacting with him.

“You’re making me destroy a historic building,” he says after having blown up half of Prague, killed hundreds of innocent bystanders, and tortured several other characters. But it is lines like that, his millionaire outfits, and his mustache that make us enjoy hating him.

Unlike Neeson’s character in Taken who mostly wants to be left alone when it comes to the action, Gosling’s character in The Gray Man knows when to accept the help. Said help comes in the shape and form of Ana de Armas’s character, Dani Miranda.

Although in the beginning Miranda is set on capturing Six and bringing him in to clear her name, she begins to realize who the real bad guys are and decides to help him. He is able to last as long as he does because of her.

Dani Miranda is the kind of female character we want to see in action movies. She doesn’t back down, makes herself be respected, and proves to be one of the best agents the CIA has.

Ana de Armas isn’t new in the action scene and we are truly lucky to have her portrayal of badass women.

An action movie isn’t it without good fight scenes, and The Gray Man knows how to deliver exactly what the audience wants. There are plenty of times in which our hero has to beat men up, avoid bullets, and jump off buildings.

However, the interesting thing the movie does is set the ambiance for these fights so perfectly that we can tell when something is about to happen. From the very first fight at the New Year’s party, the lights, sound, and colors let us know how the fights will go.

Utilizing red, pink, purple, and blue every fight has its setting. There is smoke, a song or music playing in the background, fire or lights going off, and characters “dancing” to a perfect rhythm.

This formula repeats itself throughout different scenes: the plane, in the house when Six first meets Claire, in Vienna, and in the hospital.

However, this changes during the last battle between villain and hero. The night is coming to an end, just like these 122 minutes of chase. One of them will go down.

The sun rising is the perfect metaphor for the good guy winning. Not only does he save Claire, the only family he has, he also brings down one of the worst mercenaries of his time.

Just like one would feel safe knowing Bryan Mills is coming to save you, we would feel safe knowing Six is on his way to get us. He is the kind of action hero who doesn’t let his people down.

The Gray Man hits all the right action movie spots and leaves us satisfied knowing we got exactly what we wanted: fight scenes, chases around the world, and a bloody yet happy ending.

Stray Observations:

• It is a good re-telling of the typical trope in which a government organization has an unofficial group intervening when necessary.
• The movie does a great job of explaining what a gray man is.
• There are little jokes and sarcastic moments that give the movie life and soothe the mood when necessary: “Where are you?” “Emotionally?”
• The torture scenes are there to make you know what the villain is capable of but they are not traumatizing like in other movies.
• The total destruction of cities plays well into the action movie genre.
• A nice touch was Lloyd saying “every man or woman he’s ever slept with” not giving away the sexuality of the main character and normalizing homosexuality.

What did you think of The Gray Man? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Gray Man is now streaming on Netflix.

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