In the Grey (2026)
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Premise: An investment bank has loaned a billion dollars to a gangster. When he refuses to repay, an elite collection agent (Eiza González) and a team of mercenaries (Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal) plot to recover the money.
What Works: In the Grey has all the typical hallmarks of a Guy Ritchie film. It’s about gangsters and heists with cool characters dressed in impeccable outfits. In this case, Ritchie brings together crime dramas and international investment banking. The protagonist’s multipronged approach to recovering a debt suggests that these two fields overlap. Eiza González plays a debt collector who uses the law, espionage, sabotage, and violence to pressure a gangster into repayment. Even though there’s not much to her character, González is very good in this and she credibly commands the team. The first two-thirds of In the Grey is a strategy game and the mechanics of the operation are impressive and interesting, especially the way the different facets of the plan dovetail together. This portion is edited well, overlapping action and exposition to keep the story moving. The last third of In the Grey is a straightforward action picture with the heroes on the run from an army of thugs. This extended chase sequence is fast moving and energetic, the violent equivalent of the precision in the earlier legal segments.
What Doesn’t: To say the characters of In the Grey are thin doesn’t quite cover it. No one has any depth or color. Everyone is exactly who they appear to be on the outset. Eiza González’s character is a methodical strategist and Carlos Bardem’s gangster is a cartoonish villain. Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal’s characters are interchangeable. They might as well have been combined into a single person. Dropping one of them wouldn’t change the story at all. Gyllenhaal and Cavill have banter but their exchanges are not very funny. None of the central characters expresses emotion. Everyone is just cool and unphased, even when things don’t go exactly to plan. The stakes of the movie are not compelling. A wealthy gangster has ripped off an investment bank but neither of those entities are sympathetic and there are no consequences whether the debt gets repaid or not. The scenario suggests a comment on economics, banking, and power and there is an inference of office politics involving a bank executive played by Rosamund Pike. None of this is developed enough. The storytelling is shorn down to be as sleek as possible but it’s so perspicuous that the film loses any possibility of depth or meaning.
Bottom Line: In the Grey has a glossy surface and the technical qualities are superb. But there’s not much to it. The characters are barely even stereotypes and the drama is not very engaging.
Episode: #1101 (May 31, 2026)