In the Grey
Guy Ritchie's latest is "The A-Team" meets an Andy Sidaris flick meets the "Ocean's 11" remake.
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Guy Ritchie is a cult director who’s become a quite prolific one in recent memory making eight movies in the span of seven years. His latest is “In the Grey” (now in theaters) and it highlights a lot of what the British filmmaker does best.
Rachel Wild (Eiza González) is a lawyer with a set of brass balls who’s just as quick to put her neck out to defend unjustly imprisoned soldiers Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sid (Henry Cavill) as she is to go after murderous businessman Manny Salazar (Carlos Bardem, brother of Javier).
This spirit has engendered great loyalty from Bronco, Sid and their merry band of misfits, but it’s also made quick enemies of Salazar, his bodyguard Axel Olsson (“Game of Thrones” alum Kristofer Hivju) and his lawyer William Horowitz (former brownfacer, Michelle Pfeiffer boyfriend and “Friends” guest star boyfriend Fisher Stevens).
“In the Grey” very much feels like “The A-Team” (either the NBC series or Joe Carnahan’s cinematic interpretation from 2010) by way of a Andy Sedaris movie (so many gadgets!) by way of the “Ocean’s 11” remakes.
This isn’t sophisticated stuff, but it’s a helluva lot of fun. It seems like it was written by a 12-year-old boy who’s stuffing the script with all the things that amuse him, i.e. dirt bikes, ATVs, ziplines (with or without Arby’s and Double Diet Dew) and guns, guns, guns and ‘plosions, ‘plosions, ‘plosions. Ritchie is cheeky enough to give a lot of this stuff slang (i.e. rockets are referred to as butt plugs) and harangue.
As juvenile as Ritchie is, he’s fairly forward-thinking in making our female lead the smartest person in the room who’s queer (and amusingly reunited with on-screen girlfriend Rosamund Pike from “I Care a Lot”) and our male leads every bit as gay as Gyllenhaal was in “Brokeback Mountain.” He’s also goofy enough to blatantly share a cocktail recipe (beverage not bomb) for kicks.
“In the Grey” is pretty people doing cool stuff for the hell of it and I’m here for it.