Guy Ritchie returns to the kind of slick, dialogue-driven crime caper that made his name in In the Grey, a film built around a covert retrieval mission involving a stolen billion-dollar fortune. The story follows a team of elite operatives sent after the money and into the orbit of a ruthless despot, with Henry Cavill as Sid, Jake Gyllenhaal as Bronco and Eiza González as Rachel Wild.
That trio gives the movie much of its momentum. One review describes Cavill and Gyllenhaal as sharing an oddly affectionate, subtly homoerotic camaraderie, while González’s Rachel Wild arrives as the negotiator brought in when diplomacy has failed and intimidation becomes necessary. The same review calls them a magnetic trio that keeps the film constantly entertaining.
The film marks Ritchie’s return to the fast-talking criminal style associated with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch after several years spent bouncing between blockbuster experimentation and franchise filmmaking. Here, he seems most comfortable in the rhythm of quick exchanges, shifting loyalties and men who communicate affection through insults, loyalty and violence, with the filmmaker maintaining the exact groove he knows best.
That does not mean In the Grey is all muscle and motion. The review says the film is sometimes talky and that viewers expecting relentless action may be surprised by how much dialogue it contains. It also says the movie often believes its plotting is more ingenious than it actually is, a warning that the scheme at the center can feel smarter on paper than it does on screen.
Even so, the movie appears to work by refusing to pretend it is something else. It is more interested in personalities, banter and the push and pull between its leads than in pure spectacle, and that is where Ritchie’s style tends to land best. The result may not reinvent his formula, but it proves he can still execute it with enough charm and style to make the ride worthwhile.
For anyone expecting nonstop action, that is the catch: In the Grey is a crime caper that keeps talking even when it could be moving faster. For anyone who came for Ritchie’s swagger, Cavill’s charisma and the chemistry around Gyllenhaal, that may be exactly the point.
