In the Grey feels like the sort of anonymous streaming-era action thriller that would quietly appear on Netflix one Friday afternoon and be forgotten by Monday morning.
There’s a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s ’90’s blaxploitation film Jackie Brown that perfectly sums up how I felt after watching In The Grey. After a crime scheme gone wrong, Samuel L Jackson’s Ordell Robbie shoots Robert de Niro’s Louis Gara in the stomach and then looks at him with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment.
“What the f*** happened to you, man?” he asks. “Your ass used to be beautiful.”
I would want to say the same to Guy Ritchie after seeing his latest effort as writer-director. After all, this is the same filmmaker who gave us Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and The Gentlemen — three of the coolest crime movies made. Films overflowing with personality, memorable characters and the kind of dialogue that made you want to spend time in the worlds Ritchie created, regardless of what the plot was about.
In The Grey has none of that. Instead, it feels like the sort of anonymous streaming-era action thriller that would quietly appear on Netflix one Friday afternoon and be forgotten by Monday morning.
