Gray Man Is A Huge Fun Fare

Gray Man(Netflix)

Starring  Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page, Wagner Moura, Julia Butters, Dhanush, Alfre Woodard, and Billy Bob Thornton

Directed  by  the Russo Brothers

Rating: ***

When it comes to unapologetic fun  the Russo Brothers  are next to none. Having experienced their  voracious  appetite  for  adventure  in the past,  The Gray Man  comes as  no surprise. The  bigger-the-better  philosophy  of flamboyant  filmmaking is very much operational here as  Ryan Gosling takes  on Chris Evans  in a game of cat-and-mouse that takes us  halfway across  the globe in pursuit  of  action.

The pace of storytelling is relentless. It’s not that the script doesn’t  give us  time to think. There is  nothing that we need to  playback in our minds. The  Russo Brother lay out the plot in  vivid visceral detail  , providing us with a complete comprehensive , sometimes  unique sometimes familiar  experience.

 It may seem like nothing new. But   there’s never  a dull moment. I for one, was  hooked from  the start in spite of  Gosling’s poor performance.  Chris Evans’ villainy  more than makes up for  Gosling’s listless  heroism. Evans is  wicked and wacky,  naughty and sinister.It wouldn’t be  an exaggeration to say his performance  is  a few notches  beyond the film’s content which  tends to lean too heavily towards visual  hijinks .

 Probing the  human psyche  is not what the Russo Brothers are  known for  although they have  directed a thoughtptovoking   film called Cherry in which Tom Holland  played a drug  addict  who robs banks to  sustain his needs.  The co-directors  try for a  bit  of  emotional  heft  by  going into Gosling’s  violent childhood and  his  cutely sentimental  relationship with the beautiful  Julia Butters whom he must  protect from his  colleagues at the CIA.

The very talented Alfred Woodard leaps  out of the screen in  a  powerful cameo as a woman who knows how to be gutsy when  all fails.

All in all The Gray Man is  a terrific action drama mounted on   a  scale that  that make us wonder what the Russo brothers would attempt next!

As for Dhanush’s cameo,  it is brief enough to  qualify as a  guest appearance and nothing  in terms  of  length and impact when  compared with  Randeep Hooda in the Russo Brothers’  Extraction.