Three very pretty people team up to get back a fortune owed by a ruthless despot in Guy Ritchie’s “In the Grey”. It’s a sleek and straightforward action-thriller laced with big set pieces, snappy dialogue, and a nonsense approach to storytelling. And did I mention three very pretty people? Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Eiza González form the film’s central trio and clearly have a ball with Ritchie’s signature energy and swagger.
Despite hardly any promotion, “In the Grey” is a consistently fun throwback action film that deserves an audience. Ritchie never hides his intentions. His latest is a kinetically-paced heist movie that slow-builds to a big action payoff. And it openly leans on the charms, good looks, and sharp chemistry of its three leads. It’s a pretty simply formula that Ritchie knows well, and here he mostly gets it right.
The storytelling unfolds with a near procedural precision, directly moving us from point to point with hardly any downtime for such things as character development or relationship building. The movie is nearly as all-business as its characters, finding room for the occasional dry banter until it’s time for its trio to go to work. The simplicity is almost endearing even if it does approach formulaic. As for me, I enjoyed Ritchie’s unapologetic matter-of-fact approach.
The world of “In the Grey” is full of attorneys, bankers, investors, mercenaries, and tyrants. It’s where we meet the cunning and commanding Rachel Wild (a fabulous González), a lawyer who aggressively recovers money from shady borrowers and returns it to the equally shady financial firms who loaned it. Rachel is hired by Bobby Sheen (Rosamund Pike), a reluctant but desperate banking executive trying to avoid her boss’s wrath by retrieving $1 billion owed by a powerful crime boss named Manny Salazar (Carlos Bardem). The problem is Salazar has already killed one of Bobby’s lawyers who dared to try and collect.
Rachel is good at her job because she works within that small grey area between legal and illegal. And it helps that she has two loyal and capable extraction experts by her side, Sid (Cavill) and Bronco (Gyllenhaal). Individually they have unique specialties; together they are a highly efficient and lethal duo aided by their small team of operatives. As for Salazar, he lives lavishly on an island he owns, protected by a private army and a corrupt police department who are on his payroll.
Rachel gets Salazar’s attention by slickly, meticulously, and covertly seizing his assets, freezing his accounts, and ultimately costing him millions of dollars. It earns her an invite to Salazar’s island to hammer out a deal. Sid and Bronco accompany her as protection and are more than capable of keeping her safe. But they’re more concerned about the extraction if things heat up. And as you can guess, things definitely heat up leading to an action-packed second half marked by one unexpected swerve that really raises the stakes.
The film’s three stars have all worked with Ritchie before and they effortlessly slide into the skins of the characters he has created. We can only speculate about the depths of Rachel, Sid, and Bronco’s relationships. That’s because they are consummate professionals with a near robotic focus on the job at hand. They occasionally break their intensity with a bit of humor or a concerned word that may point to closer bonds. But their affections mainly lie with their work, as seen in their extensive planning, detailed coordination, obsessive preparation, and pinpoint execution.
Of course the savvy Ritchie is no stranger to big action. It takes some time getting to it with the surprisingly dense exposition-filled stage-setting. But once it comes, it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a veritable buffet of tense shootouts and thrilling vehicle chases, marked by big explosions and an even bigger body count. Meanwhile the costume design is as eye-popping as the set pieces. As I said, these are very pretty people and Ritchie looks to his favorite designer, Loulou Bontemps to ensure they’re well dressed for the every occasion.
“In the Grey” is a wildly entertaining action caper that mixes a Soderberghian style of storytelling with Guy Ritchie’s visual panache. It hearkens back to older action films yet has an exhilarating verve all its own. With such a laser focus, the film does leave you wishing for more between the three main characters themselves. But Ritchie knows what he’s after, and he locks in and delivers. Gyllenhaal and Cavill are rock-solid fits, but it’s an especially great role for González who ends up stealing the show. And what a fun show it is.
VERDICT – 3.5 STARS
Keith & the Movies 