“My name is Donald Fitzroy. I’m here to commute your sentence.”
And by “commuting” Courtland Gentry’s sentence, what Fitzroy really meant was to remove him from prison, erase his identity, rename him Six, train him in Tel Aviv and then use Six as a government assassin until the day he dies. (And if Six happens to die by his own government’s hands, so be it.)
That’s what happened to the other Sierra agents. In fact, Six’s current mission is to kill Four, who went rogue after discovering corruption within the CIA.
But in Four’s dying moments, he gives Six a thumb drive with encrypted proof of his findings.
Six is intrigued. How deep does the corruption go? Who is involved?
Before he can find out, Denny Carmichael (the CIA agent who authorized Four’s elimination) double-crosses Six. Worse still, he hires Lloyd Hansen to take him out.
Everyone knows Lloyd is a “sociopath.” He was kicked out of the CIA after five-and-a-half months for “bad ethics, zero impulse control and unsanctioned torture.”
Lloyd works in the private sector now. And since he isn’t bogged down by the CIA’s pesky rules, he can do whatever it takes to remove Six from the picture—including kidnapping Fitzroy and his niece (who are practically family to the identity-less Six) and threatening to murder them.
Fitzroy became his niece’s guardian when Claire’s parents died suddenly, and they have a loving father-daughter relationship. Six, in turn, developed a family-like bond with the pair while protecting Claire when Fitzroy had to go on a mission in another country.
Because of these relationships, Fitzroy initially refuses to give up Six’s location to Lloyd. Once he realizes that Lloyd has preemptively kidnapped Claire for this eventuality, he orders Six’s escorts to kill him. Six escapes but allows Fitzroy to explain the situation. He understands and forgives Fitzroy for the betrayal, working to save both him and Claire. And later, when he’s given the chance to take out Lloyd once and for all, he prioritizes Claire’s safety above vengeance, ensuring her rescue before pursuing Lloyd.
There seems to be a code of honor amongst assassins: They typically don’t kill kids. Meanwhile, Six finds allies both in and out of government service due to Carmichael’s and Lloyd’s lack of respect for this code.
People sacrifice themselves for the ones they love.
Six references a story from Greek mythology. We see a priest carrying an incense ball during a funeral procession.
We see Six shirtless as he bandages his wounds. A man jokes that women at a party are his “future ex-wives.” When a male supervisor calls his female subordinate “attractive,” she calls him out for harassment. Lloyd says he wants to track down “every man or woman” Six has ever had sex with. Someone references sex with “desperate ugly chicks.”
Throughout the film, people fight with their fists, feet, guns, knives, bazookas, grenades and even fire extinguishers. We see a lot of bloodshed, and people die. And a lot of innocent bystanders (and police doing their jobs) get caught in the crossfire due to Lloyd and Carmichael’s disregard for collateral damage.
Several people are killed when they are thrown out of a plane (and the plane crashes when one of these people hits an engine, causing it to explode). One man who initially escapes with a parachute is quickly killed when Six intercepts him in the air and wraps the parachute cables around the man’s throat; we later see the body hanging from the parachute on the ground). Others are killed by crashing vehicles, falling buildings and explosions. Some characters are strangled.
A few people sacrifice themselves for friends (one blows up her own oxygen tank, while another hides a live grenade on his person).
It’s said that Lloyd has a higher kill count than the entire Israeli Mossad. When we first meet him, Lloyd is torturing a man for information using battery jumper cables. Later, he pulls a man’s fingernails out with a pair of pliers. He threatens nearly everyone, including his own employees. And he fires a flare gun next to Claire’s face, burning her and promising that he’s willing to kill a child. (He also uses a shoelace to tourniquet two of his fingers that he lost in an explosion.)
We hear that someone was drowned after angering the wrong man in government. A man’s head is held underwater in another scene. We hear that someone’s eyes were gouged out over a snack food. A few people are hit in the face with fireworks and flare guns. Six gets pepper sprayed a few times. People are shot with tranquilizer darts. Combatants throw and smash things in anger (and one person shoots and kicks dead bodies in his frustration, calling them “morons”).
Six learns that people in the government are covering up their involvement in unsanctioned assassinations, torture and bombings (and video footage shows that they unleashed significant collateral damage).
[Spoiler Warning] We learn that Six’s father was abusive. We see flashbacks to his father burning Six with a car cigarette lighter and holding the boy’s head underwater for “talking back.” Six says he went to prison for killing his dad when the man went too far while beating Six’s brother (even though his brother would have died if Six hadn’t stepped in).
There is a single use of the f-word (and one near-use preceded by “mother” before it’s cut off). We also hear 14 uses of the s-word and at least a handful each of “a–,” “a–hole,” “b–tard,” “b–ch,” “d–mit,” “d–n,” “d–k,” “h—” and “p-ss.” God’s name is abused twice, and Christ’s name is abused thrice.
A woman who has smoked her whole life (and whom we see smoking in a flashback scene) is now on oxygen tanks, and her friend says she should have stopped smoking when she said she would.
People drink at a club. Someone references a cantina inside a prison.
Although Six’s service to his country in the CIA could be seen as a sort of redemption (he would have served a total of 36 years in prison if Fitzroy hadn’t recruited him), his time is almost exclusively spent professionally murdering people, which isn’t exactly a positive message.
Claire is kidnapped. And because of her uncle’s role in the CIA, this isn’t the first time she’s been a target. It appears she has a bit of trauma from the violence and kidnapping.
People lie, blackmail, steal and commit treason. Six hires someone to make him a fake passport. A girl with a heart condition is rushed to the hospital a few times. A child is kidnapped and used as leverage in a negotiation.
Carmichael and Lloyd are both incredibly condescending to Dani Miranda and Suzanne Brewer, female CIA agents. Carmichael threatens both of their jobs, blaming them for Six’s escape.
Things aren’t always black and white when it comes to covert operations. You might need to take a life here or there in order to save hundreds of others. Kidnapping is frowned upon, but if it gets the target to turn himself in, then it might be seen as a necessary evil.
It’s all a bit of a gray area. But that’s where Six operates.
In his mission to rescue Fitzroy and Claire, Six kills dozens of people (the actual number is certainly higher, but someone in the movie mentions a body count of 30 mercenaries). And that line between what’s right and what’s wrong becomes less and less defined as the film progresses and more people seem to delve into the “gray.”
True to the action-thriller genre, The Gray Man is chock full of violence. There’s nary a scene without some sort of physical altercation. And those scenes can get a bit gory at times.
Language pops up throughout the film too, which includes a single use of the f-word and a few abuses of God’s name.
These elements could make the film seem a bit “gray” itself. It’s certainly not the most explicit film Netflix’s produced (although it is the most expensive). But it’s hardly a wholesome family film either.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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