Director Guy Ritchie’s latest crime thriller features actors Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal as two stylish hench dudes protecting their boss, Rachel Wild, as she tries to collect a billion-dollar debt from a ruthless Spanish tycoon. F-words fly just about as quickly as the bullets taking down scores of nameless lackeys.
Spanish business tycoon Manny Salazar owes Spencer Goldstein a cool billion dollars. But Salazar isn’t the kind of guy you can just send a repo man or collection agent to ring his doorbell.
That’s where Rachel Wild comes in. Technically, she’s a lawyer, unleashing a barrage of legal actions to limit Salazar’s global business operations. She shuts down his oil rig, for instance. She seizes his yacht. His jet. Etc.
But legal action alone likely won’t compel Salazar to cough up the cash. No, Rachel will have to go see the guy. On his terms. On his island off the coast of Spain. An island where he owns the police—and everything else.
It’s the kind of operation that requires muscle, finesse, expertise and a certain kind of savoir faire—the kind that Rachel’s two fixer/extractor/protector/driver hench dudes Bronco and Sid provide. They’re joined by three other Mission Impossible-esque operatives to make sure that Rachel gets on and off Salazar’s island with that billion-dollar debt settled.
Bronco and Sid know things will go sideways. After all, the last debt collector who approached Salazar, a guy named Braxton, thought he had an agreement with the tycoon. Of course, that was right before he ended up with a bullet in his head.
Rachel’s determined to avoid the same fate.
Easier said than done.
A flashback tells us that Rachel broke Sid and Bronco out of a nasty foreign prison where they likely would have rotted away. And they’ve repaid her with unwavering loyalty as they (and the rest of Rachel’s faithful team) willingly put themselves in harm’s way over and over again to protect her.
We hear a passing comment that one character is a Muslim. Salazar wears a cross.
Rachel’s tops expose some cleavage and can be a bit formfitting. A few women in bikinis are visible around swimming pools in a couple of scenes.
Someone draws a phallic symbol in the dirt. A character uses a hand motion suggesting masturbation.
The body count here is high, with scores of nameless underlings, henchmen and corrupt police officers getting gunned down or blown up (via drone bombs, RPGs and land mines) in scenes throughout the movie. Reckless car and motorcycle chases are often involved, with characters shooting at each other.
(Salazar’s henchmen seems to have gone to stormtrooper shooting school, though, as their bullets rarely connect with our protagonists, while Bronco, Sid and the rest of Rachel’s gang rarely miss their intended targets.)
We see plenty of dead bodies and pools of blood. That said, the violence here is all in service of a fast-moving plot, and the camera rarely lingers on the implied carnage in a graphic way.
About 50 f-words, including one pairing with mother. Single uses each of two extremely vulgar c-words. One misuse of Jesus’ name. One use each of “a–” and “b–ch.”
Salazar generally has a cigar in his mouth and a drink in his hand. Sid splashes liquor from a flask all over himself and pretends to be very drunk.
Sid intentionally gets arrested by pretending to be drunk and urinating on the arresting officers (which we see from behind). Bronco later makes a comment about what he smells like.
British director Guy Ritchie’s latest effort is a stylish affair. Though Rachel Wild is ostensibly the main character, the real focus here is on Bronco (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sid (played by Henry Cavill), an impossibly cool duo who barely break a sweat while dispatching Salazar’s gang of goons.
Although In the Grey isn’t technically a heist movie, it feels like one. Think Oceans 11 meets Mission Impossible. Except, with a much higher body count. And an f-word tally to match.
About that latter problem, it’s too bad, really. In the Grey delivers a taut, well-crafted thriller that’s otherwise an engaging example of its genre. But all that profanity, including a couple of exceedingly vulgar outbursts, pushes this intense caper into hard-R territory.
Is it as graphic as it could have been? No. But did the script need to be that f-bomb littered to tell this story effectively? Also no.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
