In The Gray Man, the Russo brothers swap superheroes for brisk spycraft
Ryan Gosling squares off with Chris Evans and his "trash stache" in a fun action flick that happens to be the priciest movie ever from Netflix

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.
Sure, at a $200 million budget—making it the most expensive Netflix original ever—the film feels overpriced. When Joe and Anthony Russo get that much money to make something, especially when it’s written by Avengers: Endgame duo Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, it feels like there ought to be exploding planets and flying people shooting power blasts from their bodies. But hell, everything’s twice the price nowadays. Have you seen your grocery bill lately?
But if exploding planes and people falling through the air while strangling each other will suffice, it’s all good. The Russo brothers don’t necessarily have the world’s most discernible style as directors, besides some annoying stutter-vision fights in their Marvel movies, Civil War being the worst offender. The Gray Man, however, shows what they may have been building to with that. These fight scenes frequently take a subjective turn, like one that gives audiences the perspective of Gosling getting a mild concussion, or the way the chaos of a plane coming to pieces distorts everything. It’s more visually Bourne than Gladiator, and a definite step up, fighting-wise, from Captain America sequels.
This is provable largely because Captain America himself, Chris Evans, is here to fight, albeit as a villain. In a role that at times seems written for Nicolas Cage—especially when he yells at fresh corpses and kicks them—Evans dons a “trash stache” and white pants to play Lloyd Hansen, a douchey, sociopathic independent contractor who does CIA-style dirty work with little regard for protocol or laws. America’s ass has become America’s asshole. Gosling’s Six, a CIA hitman who discovers some damning secrets about his own employers, becomes the target of both the legit CIA and their not-so-legit associate in Lloyd.