Well at least this latest Netflix effort gives us some eye candy in the form of the annoyingly ageless Ryan Gosling and a slightly hammy Chris Evans, but the rest of it is derivative even by their standards. We start with a young man being released from prison by "Fitzroy" (Tommy Lee Jones) so he can join an elite CIA hit squad. Named "Six" (Gosling), his first mission is straight out of the "Mechanic" (2011) only it's an erstwhile colleague that he is sent to eradicate. A task that proves remarkably simple but is accomplished not before, luckily for us, he is given a micro chip that illustrates his new boss "Carmichael" (an underwhelming Regé-Jean Page) is about as crooked as the day is long. There now ensues a series of long "John Wick" style combat scenes as try as this hugely well equipped CIA operation does, it simply cannot capture "Six". Desperate times call for desperate measures so "Hansen" (Evans) is drafted in to finally do the business by kidnapping the easily accessible niece of the now retired TLJ, and using her as leverage he tries a different tack. Wholesale slaughter follows and along the way some lovely buildings in Prague and Croatia become neat piles of rubble; the local citizens are dropping like flies sending those in the CIA PR department into spasms... Well you get the gist. The always over-rated Ana de Armas sports quite a colourful suit at the start, but as usual her contributions are pretty unimpressive; TLJ is nowhere near his best and the thing lurches on towards a really inevitable conclusion that stretched out the thinnest of plots and showed a really disconcerting image of a CIA completely out of control, running rampage - and that scenario isn't remotely plausible. There is plenty of car-chasing, gunfights and pyrotechnic displays but that's nowhere near enough to compensate for a pretty unremarkable script and an amalgam of stories we have seen done better elsewhere, many times before. That said, if you get a chance to see it during it's limited cinema run then I'd give it a go. On television this is just subscription fodder with A-list cows that you will instantly forget.

**Overall : The big-budget, big stars, and big action felt more like a knockoff of other action franchises than a success in itself.** The Gray Man is the result of putting a Fast and Furious movie in a blender with Taken or John Wick and Michael Bay. The outrageous action and super cheesy dialogue try to take itself as a serious spy movie. Don’t get me wrong-it’s not a bad movie. The fight choreography is pretty good, and the Gray Man boasts an impressive A-list cast. It is a decent generic action flick. But the goofiness of Chris Evans’ villain was almost at Batman & Robin levels. I really wanted to rate this movie a little higher (like a 3.5 of 5 or 7 of 10), but it just falls short.

It's good stuff, but ought to have been so much more. <em>'The Gray Man'</em> features all the ingredients to have become a quality movie. Unfortunately, it is simply 'just' a watchable popcorn action flick. That's not necessarily a criticism in itself, it's just that I had hoped for far greater. Ryan Gosling puts in an entertaining performance, his dynamic with youngster Julia Butters is reminiscent of his similar showing with Angourie Rice in 2016's <em>'<a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/the-nice-guys/">The Nice Guys</a>'</em>. Chris Evans and Ana de Armas are noteworthy positives alongside Gosling. The worldwide vibe of the story is cool, while the action sequences - aside from one 'skydiving' scene - are satisfactory enough. I enjoyed the film thus have no real complaints, it just could've/should've been something more memorable.