In the Grey, the new action picture from Guy Ritchie, is an entertaining theatrical experience with very few surprises offered throughout the picture. Stylish, with every character playing it super cool, it becomes less interesting with each passing scene, as the script makes the fatal flaw of spending a large chunk of the first act outlining exactly how the movie will end. As a result, the film’s obsession with professionalism undercuts much of the suspense and excitement the movie begins to build toward.
A film like that needs to be very well made and leave very little room for error. A Few Good Men, for example, has Tom Cruise outlining exactly what is going to happen in Rob Reiner’s film during courtroom prep with Kevin Pollak and Demi Moore while pulling off a cartoonish Jack Nicholson impression. And for a time, In the Grey almost threads the needle, with a cool, calm, and collected approach meant to entertain. It is a Hollywood formula as old as time: retrieve, escape, and survive impossible odds.
However, the script is more concerned with making the actors look and feel cool, giving them too much free rein to make odd choices, while never offering clear motivation or presenting real stakes to keep the audience on edge. Generic and one-dimensional, the only real twist is that the movie offers no cheap twists, backstabbing, or plot shifts, instead giving you the cliff notes an hour before the film truly takes off. In the Grey is a middle-of-the-road heist thriller that never takes any real chances, which is the objectionable part of the experience.
The story follows Rachel Wild (3 Body Problem’s Eiza González), a born negotiator who acts as an extortion specialist for a shady New York City financial firm. Her boss, Bobby Sheen (Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike), gives her the impossible task of getting a billion dollars of the board’s money back from an overseas gangster, Manny Salazar (three-time Goya nominee and Javier’s brother, Carlos Bardem). A task that seems impossible on the surface. Rachel is the brains, and now she needs the brawn.
That is where Bronco (Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sid (2013 Teen Choice Award for Best Kiss nominee Henry Cavill, the most prestigious award we could find) come in, backing her play with guns as extraction experts with backup plans upon backup plans while defending the woman who broke them out of a third-world prison. (Rachel narrates that you cannot buy that kind of loyalty.) To do that, they bait Salazar’s lawyer, Mr. Horowitz (Fisher Stevens), whom Rachel outmaneuvers by always staying multiple steps ahead.
What happens next is exactly what you think is going to happen. Bronco, Sid, and Rachel hire a bunch of stoic badasses to help protect them and offer support. Fisher Stevens does, you know, Fisher Stevens things, acting anxious and perplexed, something he has perfected since the 1980s. Then you get the generic impossible-mission cliché. And, of course, the real action is in the Guy Ritchie tone and style. The action is the rhythm, swagger, personality, and momentum of its characters rather than the bullets.
That brings me to the point where the filmmaker and cast play to their strengths and do what they do best. Guy Ritchie, as in his last couple of films, puts the movie on cool, suave autopilot. Henry Cavill is the same character in nearly every film he appears in: sexy, suave, and never losing his composure. Eiza González, again, is sexy, poised, and never loses her composure. Jake Gyllenhaal, well, uses an odd combination of Boston-surfer-dude-quasi-British-cadence and sleepy vocal rhythm, which I assume is because he was bored.
Oh, and rest assured, folks, he is still sexy, suave, and never loses his composure, and Ritchie lets the cycle continue. Yet González’s character has no real motivation to do what she is doing, given the stakes that put her life at risk. This would have made Cavill and Gyllenhaal’s characters three-dimensional, causing them to have very sobering conversations with their friend, putting her own life and theirs at risk. The villains are neither threatening nor even remotely intimidating, serving as comic relief that falls flat. Then there is the death of a character that was like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit as an effort to imitate genuine consequences.
It is hard to hate a film like In the Grey. Mainly because, at a quick and pulsating ninety-or-so minutes, it never fails to entertain. However, it is the cinematic equivalent of cheating: a confidence-man scheme that takes a 40-minute idea and stretches it into a feature film. The difference here is that the movie has a cast and filmmaker capable of tricking you into thinking you were given your money’s worth.
In the Grey is currently playing exclusively in theaters courtesy of Black Bear Pictures.
In the Grey finds Jake Gyllenhaal, Henry Cavill, and Eiza González trapped in a generic Guy Ritchie picture that survives almost entirely on rhythm, swagger, personality, and repetition.... I said almost.
I am a film and television critic and a proud member of the Las Vegas Film Critic Society, Critics Choice Association, and a 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes/Tomato meter approved. However, I still put on my pants one leg at a time, and that’s when I often stumble over. When I’m not writing about movies, I patiently wait for the next Pearl Jam album and pass the time by scratching my wife’s back on Sunday afternoons while she watches endless reruns of California Dreams. I was proclaimed the smartest reviewer alive by actor Jason Isaacs, but I chose to ignore his obvious sarcasm. You can also find my work on InSession Film, Ready Steady Cut, Hidden Remote, Music City Drive-In, Nerd Alert, and Film Focus Online.
