Say what you will about the man, but Guy Ritchie doesn’t quit. In his post-COVID filmography alone the writer/director has released six pictures; and at the time of this writing, he’s got two more in the pipeline. That sort of work ethic can be rewarding, but also dangerous – especially when you genre hop like Ritchie does. That cautionary tale now has another case file to represent its woes, courtesy of the surprisingly turgid crime caper In the Grey.
Throughout this would-be adventure, we follow asset management lawyer Rachel Wild (Eiza Gonzalez) as she tries to settle a $1 billion tab with shady businessman Manny Salazar (Carlos Bardem.) Collecting that sort of money brings with it a unique set of challenges. Most pressing of all is the fact that the quarry in question doesn’t want to pay.
Enter the rather ungentlemanely Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal), Sid (Henry Cavill), and their team of experts who all tackle a simple mission: making Salazar’s life a living financial hell. When he pays, they’ll go away; an objective that’s easier said than done. That same wisdom applies to any exercise meant to turn In the Grey into a more watchable piece of entertainment.
Wasting An All-Star Cast – Including Eiza Gonzalez, Henry Cavill, And Jake Gyllenhaal – Is This Film’s Real Crime
One has to really rack their brain to figure out how this undertaking became a massive fumble. Sitting in celluloid purgatory for a little over a year from its original release date, this Guy Ritchie romp has a lot of his trademarks in play. Key ingredients in that pantheon include exposition dumps where we see a plan come together, witty repartee between a pair of seemingly mismatched operatives, and so many rug pulls you’d expect someone to have whiplash.
That familiar ground should work, especially with In the Grey returning Eiza Gonzalez, Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal to the director’s hand of talent. These three participants, above all others, should know how to make this sort of work sing. Instead, familiar hits from the Guy Ritchie song sheet come off as flat, rushed, and underdone.
It’s exhausting to behold, as you know that Cavill and Gyllenhaal could make the perfect team – under the right circumstances. Throw in Gonzalez’s trademark brand of mischief, and that’s usually a go picture; a fact seen in Ritchie’s recent World War II mayhem machine The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
Not even actors like Rosamund Pike, Kristofer Hivju, and Fisher Stevens – people who are all game for anything – can give this story a jolt. These are the sort of people the Ritchie Machine works wonders with on a good day, and this material seemingly leaves them all out to dry. A handful of moments do manage to get a rise, but not enough to get things off the ground.
In The Grey Moves So Fast, It Forgets To Pick Up The Plot On Its Way Out
A good number of cinematic failures come from lack of effort – a trapping that no one is immune to. Perhaps the greatest compliment In the Grey earns is the fact that you definitely can’t knock it for a shortage of energy. It’s just that the intent produces a movie that trips over quite a few obstacles, rather than going off like a precision timepiece.
Clocking in at a brisk 97 minutes, and with Guy Ritchie at the stick, the plot’s pacing flies along – while also somehow simultaneously dragging its hooves. An example of that very paradox comes from the first expository planning sequence, where Eiza Gonzalez’s Rachel plots how she and her team will smoke out their prey.
In the Grey’s final product so clearly intends to give us a leaner, meaner cinematic experience. That’s the most logical explanation for why it’s as brief as it is; with the cutting room scissors favoring action over plottery.
We see an entire sabotage campaign unfold, through tons of voice-over that feels mean to beef up Gonzalez’s character. This is a flick that likes to show and tell, rather than let both of those impulses take turns in forwarding its plot. Thanks to a failure to build the characters in the room – as well as the room itself – the finale’s action set-pieces and comeuppances lack meaning or punch.
Guy Ritchie’s Latest Lives Up To Its Title, Resulting In An Oddity Worth Studying
Conventional wisdom tells us that “they can’t all be winners.” Even with that sage wisdom in mind, it is perplexing to observe just how much of a drop off In the Grey represents for Team Ritchie. By the number, this should have been – at least – a solid base hit from the helmer that gave us Lock, Stock, and Two Smokin’ Barrels; and with a cast that exhibits his knack for assembling a tantalizing troupe of teammates.
Depending on how you look at things, the culprit behind this project’s failure to impress comes down to one factor: the editing process. In the Grey’s final product so clearly intends to give us a leaner, meaner cinematic experience. That’s the most logical explanation for why it’s as brief as it is; with the cutting room scissors favoring action over plottery. When our brave team of heroic operators look to be in a pretty tight spot in the picture’s third act, frustration replaces the intended emotional chord meant to ring through the moment in question.
In the Grey definitely has very little fat on the bone, but there’s also not a lot of meat left to partake in. Embodying its title a little too well, its place in the entire arc of Guy Ritchie’s career will more than likely be as one of his rare misfires. People will certainly talk about it and scratch their heads, but it’s far from one of the worst entries on the man’s resume.
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