Both Ana de Armas and Chris Evans deliver excellent performances in 'The Gray Man' despite having lackluster material to work with.
It’s one thing when they’re paired together in a modern masterpiece like Knives Out, but Chris Evans and Ana de Armas managed to still be great together in a bad movie. When Netflix hired the directing duo and screenwriters behind two films that make it into the $2 billion club, they probably didn’t expect them to turn in something as completely unwatchable as The Gray Man.
The Russo Brothers and their regular screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely may have been perfectly suited for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the first film in an intended espionage franchise for the top streaming service was baffling incompetent to a shocking degree; Netflix was forced to learn the time old lesson of preplanning a franchise without delivering a solid first installment. While The Gray Man mostly wastes its ensemble of excellent performers, it’s Evans and de Armas who rise above the weak material and seemingly understand the film that the Russos should have been making from the beginning.
Based on a 2009 novel, The Gray Man has all the hallmarks of a fun 1990s spy caper like The Saint or Mission: Impossible, but lacks any of the same wit or inventiveness. The film follows the grim CIA agent known as “Six” (Ryan Gosling) and his co-operative Dani Miranda (de Armas) on a mission to prevent national security documents from leaking in Bangkok. Unfortunately, they become the target of the ex-CIA agent turned mercenary Lloyd Hansen (Evans), whose sociopathic rage has earned him the reputation of being one of the world’s top hitmen. What follows is a lot of nonsense revolving around a list of active CIA operatives (aka, the same plot point used in nearly every spy movie from Mission: Impossible to Skyfall); unfortunately, the excellent cast that includes Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Wagner Moura, Julia Butters, Dhanush, Alfre Woodard, and Billy Bob Thornton fails to rise above the dull material.
However, Evans and de Armas both understand what The Gray Man clearly should have been, which is a much campier, self-aware summer blast of fun. Evans brings the same physicality he showed in the Captain America franchise, but plays up Lloyd’s unhinged qualities to the extreme; it’s almost as if he’s playing the sort of film that his Scott Pilgrim vs. The World character Lucas Lee would have starred in. As for de Armas, she proves once again after No Time To Die that she deserves her own action franchise, because her effortless charisma never fails, even when the dialogue does. Since The Gray Man generated most of its audience on Netflix, savvy viewers would best be served if they just skipped straight to the precious moments where this pair was on screen.
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