2 min to read
In the Grey
How is Guy Ritchie's newest film?
Review: Since being married, my wife and I have found ourselves very much finding ourselves enjoying the Guy Ritchie movies and shows that have come out over the last 4 years or so. Because of this, I was pretty excited going into the movie, as it was another movie from a director we both really enjoy.
The movie is about a lawyer named Rachel (played by Eiza González) who works for banks and other institutions to assist them in getting back very high-value debts they have issued. Rachel gets employed by a bank to get back the debt of $1 billion owned to them by a billionaire mobster who was not intending on paying back the bank. While Rachel works on the legal side (through courts) to get the debt repaid, she also has a group of mercenaries led by Sid (Henry Cavill) and Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal) that are her body guards during negotiations who also assist her in the not-so-legal ways of also coercing the money to get paid. She’s working both in the dark and through the proper legal proceedings (the white), hence she is working in the grey.
What makes this movie so fun is that you get the fun of “legally” taking down the bad guy without getting bogged down in the legal-ese. The characters are going to various countries, all of which were beautifully shot on location. While Sid and Bronco are bodyguards, they also get involved in additional protection measures that involve multiple fight sequences, car and motorcycle chases, and shootouts, all of which were so much fun to watch.
Where the movie struggles is in its pacing and in its predictability. The first half of the movie ends where you think the end of the movie is going to end, but then everything gets turned on its head in the second half. There were precautions and preparations made for negotiations that weren’t needed, but once things go bad you revisit all of the precautions and finally get to go through all of the preparations made and brought up in the first half of the movie. While all of this is enjoyable to watch, you already know exactly what’s going to happen, because you literally see them rehearsing everything in the 1st half of the movie. Additionally, the main characters are covered in plot armor, so while you’re watching you know nothing is going to happen to them, taking away what’s supposed to be the high-level stakes throughout the movie.
Overall, I do think the movie is a lot of fun, but the lack of struggle and stakes for the protagonists in the movie makes it so you can know what’s going to happen and how certain scenes are already going to end. Guy Ritchie wanted to make a simple, fun movie where he got to have talented and attractive actors/actresses look and act as suave and cool as possible. I’d definitely recommend this for a 1-time watch, especially if you are a fan of other Guy Ritchie movies.
Rating: 3.5/5
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