Written by Matt Swanson
Guy Ritchie built his reputation on smart action-comedy hits like Snatch and Sherlock Holmes. Ritchie’s new film, In the Grey, is exactly what you’d come to expect from the English director. An overwhelmingly attractive cast meticulously plans a mission in order to trump a powerful villain. While the plot may be familiar, that doesn’t prevent the film from being a fun and exciting adventure.
It follows a group of skilled professionals who coerce the ultra-wealthy to pay their debts. They are led by Rachel (Eiza González), a lawyer who operates between the lines of legal and illegal—in the grey area between them. Along with a team of specialists in the legal realm, she works with two men who specialize in the less-than-legal world. Sid (Henry Cavill) and Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal) are elite extraction specialists. With masterful expertise, they can work people as well as they can work munitions, and they can look really, really cool doing it.
The story begins with a billion-dollar debt owed by a sinister man named Salazar (Carlos Bardem). Salazar has killed men that have tried to get him to pay his debts before, and asset managers are stumped on how to recoup their losses. Enter Rachel and her team. Through grey means and slick methods, she is able to bring Salazar’s international business operations to a halt. With Salazar requesting a sit-down on his island, the crew prepares contingency plans for every possibility. With painstakingly detailed planning sequences, the execution of said plans in the final act pays off with satisfying, action-filled results.
If Guy Ritchie knows anything, it’s how to set up an action sequence. Ritchie’s movies always feel elevated from the rest of the action genre because they feel smart. Every small detail in the setup feels like it has purpose, and he can be relied on to deliver an epic climax. With the meticulous effort put into laying out exactly what the plans are for the final act, it doesn’t leave much room for subversion. However, it never feels like the film is going through the motions. While the beats might be predictable beyond a certain point, they’re still a gratifyingly stylish spectacle to behold. After all of the buildup, the last act is a crescendo of car chases, bullets flying, cars exploding, helicopters exploding, and buildings exploding. If you like explosions, you’ll love this movie.
In the harshest terms, the characters are devoid of any emotion or depth. The good guys are blank slates for miscellaneous badassery and the bad guys exist only to be foiled by the good guys’ intellect and skill. This movie certainly isn’t trying to be a character drama, but it is apparent how little effort is put into emotionally grounding the characters. The clearest moment of this is when a character in the crew dies and there is no emotional acknowledgement at all, just a solemn glance for two seconds. The movie doesn’t try to be emotionally moving, it only tries to entertain and to excite, which can leave it feeling mechanically satisfying but bereft of substance.
In the Grey feels like a litmus test for a viewer’s appetite for Guy Ritchie movies. If you’ve seen many of his films and you want something new, you’ll think this movie is hackneyed and shallow. If you aren’t tired of Ritchie’s familiar style and just want to be entertained for 97 minutes, you’ll enjoy this. The film accomplishes what it sets out to do, but unfortunately, it appears the intention was never to innovate in the action-comedy genre or to diverge from Ritchie’s other works. Still, that doesn’t stop it from being a fun ride along the way.
