'In the Grey' Is Guns, Forearms, and Banter

For the many of you who have already watched Guy Ritchie’s Man from U.N.C.L.E. half a dozen times and are searching for a similar fix, you can do a lot worse than Ritchie’s latest, In the Grey. The film reunites Ritchie with his U.N.C.L.E. star Henry Cavill, only instead of Armie Hammer, he’s paired with the more Hollywood-friendly Jake Gyllenhaal, whose height we may never know but who, at minimum, does not engage in cannibalism.

Eiza González stars as Rachel, a half-lawyer/half-fixer who operates, as the title suggests, in the grey. She’s been hired by Bobby Sheen (Rosamund Pike) to recoup $1 billion in debt from Manny Salazar (Carlos Bardem), who has decided, simply, not to pay. What’s the debt for? It doesn’t matter. Rachel deploys the legal system as a weapon, freezing assets, grounding private jets, locking Salazar out of his yacht — making his life a living hell, at least by billionaire standards.

When the legal methods prove to be a huge pain in the ass, Rachel has Bronco (Gyllenhaal) and Sid (Cavill) on call to serve as bodyguards, enforcers, and last resorts. They have a team, they plan meticulously for every eventuality, and their contingency plans generally involve killing their way out of things. Bronco and Sid are dry and easy with a wisecrack, but mostly exist to look handsome while shooting people.

And really, that’s kind of it. There’s almost no plot to speak of. In the Grey is essentially 90 minutes of exposition and shootouts, and honestly, it’s a breeze — the rare movie that could actually benefit from an extra half hour, because hanging out with these men of few words turns out to be a genuine pleasure.

My main complaint is that In the Grey is maybe too insubstantial, which may explain why it was a significant box-office bomb ($13.5 million on a $70 million budget). There’s not enough heft to justify a theatrical release. But my God, this thing is going to find its people on streaming, and they are going to devour it. Dad-movie enthusiasts will discover it on a Friday night and watch it twice before Sunday. It’s obviously not as good as Man from U.N.C.L.E., but it has the same essential DNA: dashing men killing people while looking good doing it. Guns, forearms, and banter. What the hell else do you need?