Weekend Watch: The Gray Man, Blown Away Season 3
Spy battles and blown glass.
Image Credit: Netflix
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, it’s Gosling vs. Evans, while a glassblowing competition returns. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Still looking to make a splash on the movie front, Netflix has been trying different tactics, including working with the Oscar-winning likes of Alfonso Cuarón and Martin Scorsese to handing big bags of cash to Michael Bay. The former plan resulted in Roma and The Irishman, while the latter brought us Six Underground.
The Gray Man feels more like Bay’s effort but is fortunately considerably better. In this case, the streaming service has made a deal with Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors who spent a chunk of the 2010s working with Marvel, creating movies such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War and, of course, the gigantic last two Avengers movies. When you want the directors who helped craft two of the biggest movies of all time, you naturally give them a big budget ($200 million here) and let them loose.
Using their concept, that cash and some established actor relationships, the Russos have fashioned something firmly in the Bond and Bourne sphere, a spy action romp that trots across different countries and blows things up.
The (very basic) story, scripted by Joe Russo and regular writing collaborators Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) finds Ryan Gosling as Sierra Six, an operative who was recruited from prison to become a CIA asset. A lethal warrior who can complete any mission (impossible or otherwise) with complete deniability, he kicks the plot off when he’s sent to take out what he’s informed is a “very bad guy”. Turns out the man is a fellow Sierra who was carrying some highly sensitive information on a drive. Information that his bosses (including Regé-Jean Page’s Carmichael) and Jessica Henwick’s Suzanne Brewer) really don’t want to get out into the world.
This means, of course, that Six must now go on the run, hunted by any number of very dangerous people and specifically by Lloyd Hanson (Chris Evans, a long-time Russo ensemble member thanks to playing Marvel’s Steve Rogers for years). Lloyd was a CIA reject, a terribly dressed psychopath with a dreadful moustache who has instead become an independent contractor. He’s cunning and cruel but also enjoys a bad pun.
And that, to be honest, is all you really need to know about the story. Despite his glacially calm, occasionally sarcastic demeanour, Six has people he worries about (including Fitzroy, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who recruited him, and Fitzroy’s health-challenged niece Claire, assayed by Julia Butters) and a colleague willing to aid him (Ana de Armas’ Dani Miranda). Mostly though, this boils down to how Six gets into seemingly lethal scrapes and then uses his particular set of skills to survive the encounters. Rinse and repeat.
Despite the odd stab at development, the characters won’t trouble the top ranks of deep cinematic personas, but then The Gray Man isn’t advertised as a complex drama. This is a sleek, set-piece heavy action movie that delivers on the spy stuff if all you’re really after is cheap (well, not exactly cheap given that budget) thrills. People fight, spout silly, trope-heavy dialogue (lots of calling in kill teams or growling insults at each other) and run around a lot.
Yet it’s still an effective example of that genre, partly because Gosling and Evans get their teeth into their respective roles. Six is world-weary, while Hansen is a creepy, torture-happy killer. There’s certainly amusement to be found here, and when the Russos are on their game in several of the action scenes, it really works. It’s not going to change the world, but it’s a diverting couple of hours.
The Gray Man is on Netflix now.
Image Credit: Netflix
My experience of glass blowing – beyond drinking from glasses – had previously been limited to a visit to a glass factory in the dim and distant past somewhere in Spain. I was young (seven or so) and was fascinated by the process of turning solid chunks of material into a gloopy, lava-like substance and from there into beautifully designed glassware.
Which explains why I enjoy the sedate (usually charms) of Netflix competition series Blown Away, which has returned for a third regular season (there was also a special Christmas version).
A little hotter (despite some of the summer days in the tent) and sweatier than, say Bake-Off, it nevertheless features talented types creating wondrous designs under a time crunch. Well, it doesn’t always work out that way, and someone always loses, sent packing.
But it’s completely engrossing to watch the experts at work, and then to try and figure out which of them might delight the judges, including host Nick Uhas and resident evaluator/glass Master Katherine Gray. Though there’s plenty of pressure and drama when work that is close to finished shatters on the unforgiving hot shop floor.
It’s easy to root for your favourite glassblower and live and die by the crucial judging stages, though the vaguely hypnotic visuals of molten glass being worked on really mean that this is a (mostly) stress-relieving comfort watch that lives in the same world as, say, The Great Pottery Throw Down (fewer judge tears here, though).
This year’s crop of competitors run the usual gamut from the stalwart experienced types to the amateurs with an original flair and, of course, those with emotional reasons for getting into the practice. The show’s producers lean a little too hard on that last one to an annoying degree, but that’s reality competition for you.
Easy to binge and enjoy even if you’ve never felt the need to tackle the incredibly tricky process of glassblowing yourself (you might even find yourself inspired), Blown Away falls into that easy-to-watch category of something to consume in between giant drama binges.
All three seasons of Blown Away (and Blown Away: Christmas) are on Netflix now. I’ve seen all episodes.