The only reason I'm giving The Gray Man a 2 star rating is because there's some pretty good action sequences throughout the film, other than that, it's a tangled hyper-masculine energy-draining zero-substance disaster. With all of the A-list talent in this film, it had the ingredients handed to it on a platinum platter to make a bada** summer blockbuster movie...besides the talent, it had the rote spy-thriller necessities such as the CIA Black-Ops, car chases, car explosions, kidnappings, guns, villians, assassins, beautiful global locations, a great director, so what happened? THAT is the $200 million dollar question (that's what the film cost to make).
The Gray Man stars Ryan Gosling (playing a prisoner who, in 2003, gets to end his sentence early in exchange for joining a CIA Black Ops group that hunts criminals. Yet we know nothing more about him, then there's Ana De Armas (her role is just a continuation of the same character she played and that's not saying too much), Jessica Henwick (her acting leaves a lot to be desired), Regé-Jean Page (his character was so underwritten, it's insulting to him and what he could have brought to the film...his role was just cheesy), Indian actor Dhanush (nothing particularly memorable with his character. He was your garden-variety assassin), the great award-winning Alfre Woodard (hers was so brief, it barely registered in the film. It was embarassing, not so much for Woodard, but for those who had the best of the best and treated her like a featured extra) and the young actress from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Julia Butters, only had a few twinkles of what she could really do, then they jumped to another scene).
The truth is, nothing in this film made an ounce of sense. The script from Joe Russo, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely doesn't give anyone very much to work with, and just when you see glimmers of hope, the end result is a lot of bizarrely paced, clunky nothingness.