“The Gray Man,” a new shoot ‘em up starring Ryan Gosling, and now streaming on Netflix after a quick trip to theatres, overwhelms the senses with an underwhelming story.
The story begins in 2003 with convicted murderer Court Gentry (Gosling) accepting a job offer from a CIA operative named Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) to live in the “gray zone” in return for a commuted sentence. He will be part of the top-secret Sierra program, trained to be a “ghost,” live in the margins and assassinate people who need killing. He’ll be the kind of guy you send in when you can’t send anyone else in. “Take all the pain that got you here,” says Fitzroy, “turn it around, and make it useful.”
Cut to 18 years later. Gentry, now known simply as Six, because “077 was taken,” he deadpans, is on assignment in Bangkok. On the orders of CIA honcho Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page), he’s there to assassinate an asset and retrieve an encrypted drive. When Six refuses to pull the trigger because there is a child in the way—he’s not all bad!—things quickly spiral out of control.
With the help of CIA agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas), Six gets the disc, but, in doing so, becomes a target himself. Turns out the disc contains info proof of unsanctioned bombings and assassinations ordered by Carmichael, in his bid to turn the CIA into his own personal army. Carmichael wants the disc destroyed and to eliminate any traces of the only people skilled enough to expose him, the Sierra program.
But how do you kill the CIA’s most deadly assassin? You hire morally compromised independent contractor Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to “put a Grade A hit” on Six. To lure Six into his web, Lloyd kidnaps the closest thing Six has to family, Fitzroy and his young niece (Julia Butters). “You want to make an omelet,” says Lloyd, “you gotta kill some people.”
“The Gray Man” is a big-budget, globe-trotting adventure that makes up in exotic locations and gunplay what it lacks in intrigue and interesting characters. Filtered through the endlessly restless camera of Anthony and Joe Russo, the movie has all the elements normally associated with high end action movies. Fists fly. By times it is a bullet ballet. Things explode. There are tough guy one liners (“Are you OK?” Miranda asks after one city-block destroying action sequence. “My ego is a little bruised,” Six snorts.), double-dealing and death around every corner.
So why isn’t it more exciting?
The story is fairly simple. It’s the kind of superkiller on-the-run we’ve seen before in everything from “John Wick” and “Nobody” to almost any Jason Statham movie, but it isn’t the simplicity or familiarity that sinks “The Gray Man.” It’s the overkill. And I don’t just mean the unusually high body count. It’s the more-is-more Michael Bay by-way-of-the-“Bourne”-franchise approach that overwhelms. The story is constantly on the move, jumping from country to country, from time frame to time frame, never pausing long enough to allow us to get to know, or care, about the characters.
Six is meant to be an enigma, and while Gosling can convincingly pull off the action and deliver a line, but he’s basically unknowable, a stoic man with a number for a name. His relationship with Fitzroy’s niece gives him some humanity, but he remains a dour presence in the center of the film.
At least Evans, as the “trash ‘stached” sociopath, appears to be having a good time. Nobody else does. That could be because there are so many characters, most of which are underused or underdeveloped. No amount of fancy camerawork could make Carmichael interesting. As the big bad meanie at the heart of all the trouble, he’s a pantomime character with only one gear.
More interesting are Indian superstar Dhanush playing a killer who values honor over cash, in his striking debut in a Hollywood film, and de Armas who does what she can with an underwritten part.
“The Gray Man” is big, loud popcorn summer entertainment that spends much time setting itself up for a sequel, time that would have been better spent creating suspense.
This is Spider-Man like you have never seen him before. “Cherry,” a new drug drama based on the novel of the same name by Nico Walker and now available on Apple TV +, features Tom Holland in his grittiest role to date.
The fresh-faced Holland is the unnamed title character, let’s call him Cherry for ease of explanation, an underachieving college freshman from an affluent family, head-over-heels for Emily (Ciara Bravo). Based on author Nico Walker, he’s a jittery collection of insecurities who finds a soul mate in Emily (Ciara Bravo), a young woman whose decision to move to Montreal to go to school sends him on a downward spiral. Impulsively, he quits school and joins the army.
Turns out Emily was bluffing, but it’s too late. They marry before he ships out, but he leaves the one good thing in his life behind for a tour of Iraq.
Woefully unprepared for the military, the death, despair and drugs take their toll and he returns to civilian life a hollow shell, riddled with PTSD. He finds comfort in drugs, and is soon swallowed up and spit out by Ohio’s opioid crisis. Financially drained and disenfranchised, he robs banks to support his heroin addiction, losing Emily and what was left of his self-respect.
It does not reveal a major plot point to let you know that “Cherry” was written while Walker was in jail, serving an eleven-year sentence. Negotiations for the film rights actually broke down when Walker, still behind bars, ran out of prison phone minutes. He’s out now, and is apparently using the money earned from the book to pay back some of the money he stole.
But back to the film.
Directed by the Russo brothers, the dynamic duo behind a good chunk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—”Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame”—the movie is a departure for them. Like their other films it’s slick and stylish, but there’s a darkly humorous tone that’s been absent their best-known work. It’s the spoonful of sugar that makes the tragic events of the main character’s life palatable but make no mistake, this isn’t a comedy. While the Russos find the funny in some very bad situations, this is a bleak film. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve already seen everything that’s going to happen,” Holland’s character says, “and it’s a nightmare.”
It’s also a rather long film. At two-and-a-half hours it luxuriates in the ambitious set-up of the story, creating a vivid sense of the character’s search for purpose in a life that feels cut adrift. The early moments feel acutely observed, but as the movie gets grittier the visual flair overwhelms the story, engaging the eye but not the brain. Ideas of toxic masculinity, the destructive nature of opioids and he very nature of war are soon abandoned in favor of a more standard crime biopic approach.
Keeping us interested is Holland, who grounds the high-flying coming-of-age story with a career best performance that never loses sight of the film’s basic premise, that this is a young man, out of his depth in almost every way.
“Cherry” is ambitious and raw but the scope of the story is too wide to be truly effective.
The words “most-anticipated movie of the year” get tossed around a few times every season, usually describing a beloved fan sequel or an Oscar hopeful riding a wave of good press.
After “Avengers: Endgame” we can retire those words until January 2020. Before it played on one public screen the follow-up to 2018’s “Avengers: Endgame” smashed records. Demand for tickets crashed AMC Theatres’ website and app, it became Fandango’s top-selling pre-sale title and in China, advance sales topped a record one million tickets in a matter of hours. Someone in the United States paid a staggering $15,000 on-line for a pair of tickets (I hope that includes popcorn) and box office prognosticators predict forecast a domestic debut in the $260 million range.
Most-anticipated indeed but the question remains, Does “Avengers: Endgame” deserve all the hype?
In the spirit of #DontSpoilTheEndgame I’m cribbing the synopsis of the movie from IMBD.com: “After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the universe is in ruins. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to undo Thanos’ actions and restore order to the universe.”
“Endgame” is, first and foremost, a fan service movie. From the sheer number of returning Marvel faves—characters number in the dozens, if not the low hundreds—too deep character backstory—superheroes have mommy and daddy issues too!—to the crew’s biggest world-saving mission to date, it indulges every aficionado’s story hopes and desires. It may leave the casual superhero fans feeling overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the film but people willing to line up for hours to see the movie on opening weekend will be rewarded for their patience.
It is epic in the terms of length—it’s three hours so get a snack—location—infinity and beyond!—but it feels like “a lot“ rather than epic.
The story begins on a minor chord, spending much time with the characters grappling with the loss of friends and family before finding a way to right the world-destroying wrongs of Thanos. There is humor, some action but mostly character work. Hulk is in a form we haven’t seen before, Rudd and Downey still have a way with the line and it’s a whole new Thor than any other movie. As the story hopscotches through time and space directors Anthony and Joe Russo keep the focus on the characters fans have come to love.
It’s in the third hour the movie loses its human touch, becoming a noisy CGI orgy that must’ve required the power of 1 million networked computers working overtime to render the frenetic images we see on screen.
As for who lives and who dies? (SPOILER ALERT WITH ABSOLUTELY NO REVEAL) You’ll get no hint here. Suffice to say one of the characters says, “part of the journey is the end,” and I can tell you there will be unsigned contracts and actors suddenly free to do other movies that do not require the wearing of spandex.
“Endgame” feels like the end of the old cycle, the beginning of a reset. Old favourites gone, passing the mantle to others before they go. We even see a poster that reads, “Where do we go, now that they’re all gone?” I’m sure the next several Avengers movies will point the way but it is worth noting there are no hints in the post-credit scene because there is no post-credit scene (at least at the screening I saw).
The film has a sense of self-importance that fans will love, giving the characters the respect that franchises owe characters who have made them billions of dollars.
