Josh Reviews In the Grey
In the Grey is the latest film written & directed by Guy Ritchie. Eiza González stars as the tough-as-nails lawyer/fixer Rachel Wild, whose job is to recover debts for super-rich clients, often from powerful and unsavory characters. She dances between the raindrops of legal and illegal in order to do so. To accomplish her goals (and ensure that she lives to tell the tale), she employs a team of mercenaries headed up by two tough, smart and loyal guys: Sid (Henry Cavill) & Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal). But when Rachel & her team are hired by Bobby (Rosamund Pike), representing the firm of Spencer Goldstein, to recover a billion dollar debt from the rich & evil criminal Salazar (Carlos Bardem), they might be in over their heads.
In the Grey is a lean, tight action-thriller. The film is a brisk 97 minutes, and it’s packed with lots of process scenes involving tactics and cool military gear, and a number of tense, well-staged action sequences, all of which I enjoyed. While the trailer sold this film as a fun, funny caper, this is for the most part a dead-serious film. There are very few jokes. This is Guy Ritchie operating in the serious-action mode of his films like The Covenant and Wrath of Man.
I enjoyed In the Grey for what it is. There are a ton of cool sequences in this film. There’s a long stretch in the first half of the film, in which we see the gang preparing for a million different scenarios that could happen on Salazar’s island, and I loved every second of that. There’s a terrific, tense sequence in which our heroes get surrounded by bad guys in a tiny restaurant, and have to shoot their way out — it might be my favorite sequence in the film. And the whole last half hour, in which Sid and Bronco have to get Rachel out of Salazar’s prison and off the island, is a lot of fun, filled with suspenseful and exciting twists and turns and lots of shit blowing up. It’s a hoot.
We do get a taste of Mr. Ritchie’s usual playfulness in the film’s creative use of text captions on the screen, especially during all the exposition in the first 30-minutes or so. I particularly liked the scene in which Bronco is listing off all sorts of military gear, using slang and abbreviations, and the on-screen captions translate for us what the heck he’s talking about.
As always, Mr. Ritchie has assembled a terrific cast, and it’s fun to see him bring back a number of great actors from his previous films. Eiza González (Baby Driver, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, The 3 Body Problem) is a strong anchor for the film as the fast-talking, whip-smart Rachel. Mr. Ritchie always seems to know just how to utilize Henry Cavill (The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), so I was happy to see Mr. Cavill here as Sid. I quite liked the pairing of Mr. Cavill and Mr. Gyllenhaal (who previously starred in Mr. Ritchie’s film The Covenant). I’m always happy to see Rosamund Pike on screen, even when it’s in a small role like that of Bobby, representing the firm that hires Rachel and her team. (I first saw Ms. Pike in Die Another Day — it’s a weak Bond film, but she was great — and I’ve enjoyed her in so many films since, such as Jack Reacher, The World’s End, Gone Girl, A United Kingdom, and more.) I also always smile to see Fisher Stevens (Short Circuit, Hail Caesar!, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch) on screen; here he plays Salazar’s increasingly stressed-out lawyer. Carlos Bardem is marvelously confident and slimy as the criminal Salazar. I loved seeing Kristofer Hivju (Tormund from Game of Thrones!) as Salazar’s chief of security. I enjoyed all the other members of Sid & Bronco’s team: Jason Wong (The Gentlemen, The Covenant, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) plays Gucci; Emmett J. Scanlan (Peaky Blinders, Guardians of the Galaxy) plays Dunne; Kojo Attah plays Baker, and Christian Ochoa Lavernia plays Morena.
While I enjoyed In the Grey, I also can’t help but wish for what it could have been. Personally, I love Guy Ritchie’s films best when he weaves in humor along with all the violence and killing. I missed that aspect when watching this. I also wish the film would have paused its breathless pace occasionally to offer us some character development. Rachel, Sid and Bronco are portrayed in the film as fearless and super-competent. They’re cool to watch, but I wish the film had allowed us to get them know them more as human beings. I think that would have engaged me more deeply with this adventure. I wanted to get a better sense of Sid and Bronco’s loyalty to Rachel — why are they so tied to her, and how do they see her? Is she mother/sister/wife? They call her “mum” at times, which feels like a combination codename/nickname; I was surprised there wasn’t even a tiny hint of any sexual tension between any of these three gorgeous individuals. Similarly, I’d have loved to have seen more of Sid and Bronco’s bond with one another. We get some playful banter, but no real understanding of how they feel about one another, how they met and/or why they’re so tied at the hip to each other. I’d have loved to have seen more moments, particularly in the third act, of just a hint of human emotion from them. Are they scared/stressed? Is their bond tested in any way? There’s a long scene when we hear Bronco on the radio with a member of his team, begging him not to sacrifice himself. But when that guy dies, we don’t even get one short silent shot of Bronco’s reaction. Not a second of emotion or grief. We’re just moving right on to the next action sequence. I think this is a missed opportunity.
Additionally, while I love how fast-paced the film is, there were times I wish we’d slowed down so I could better understand what’s happening. I wanted to know more about how Rachel first met and saved Sid and Bronco. I don’t think I ever understood what Rachel’s relationship was to Bobby (Rosamund Pike’s character), or why Bobby takes the actions she does over the course of the film. Is Bobby just a cold-hearted “make as much money as I can” person, or are there other factors at play? At the start of the third act, when Rachel has moved on to her next assignment, why aren’t Sid and Bronco with her for protection?? (She gets captured so easily!!) How did the guys manage to get all of their tech back onto Salazar’s island so quickly?? Had they really just LEFT everything there for three months? The movie totally hand-waves over that huge jump in plot-logic. There were a few too many moments like this in the film. I also felt the ending was too abrupt — the action on the island builds and builds beautifully in the third act, and then suddenly with a quick cut we’re off the island and into the wrap-up.
One last complaint: I was unhappy with the use of the cliché Jewish lawyer trope for Fisher Stevens’ character of Horowitz. I am OK with a Jewish character (or a character of ANY religion or ethnicity) being allowed to be a bad guy in a movie. But it’s such a hoary old cliche to have the Jewish money-guy character. In fact, I’d argue this is an Anti-Semitic stereotype. There’s no reason this character had to be given a Jewish name. It’s lazy and — in today’s environment with rising Anti-Semitism — problematic for me. By the same token, I didn’t like that Bobby’s firm was also given such a Jewish name: Goldstein. It’d be so easy not to fall into these lazy stereotypes and have found different names that didn’t equate sleazy money-people with Jews. That wouldn’t have required changing a single plot point or line of dialogue. I am disappointed in Mr. Ritchie’s choices here. Where is the Guy Ritchie who made a point of crafting a heroic Jewish character for Eiza González back in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare??
If you’re looking for a tense, exciting action film, there’s a lot to enjoy in In the Grey. I had a fun time watching this. But I think Guy Ritchie has made a lot of far better films.
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