Bond’s the blueprint for the suave hero in Netflix’s new £170m movie The Gray Man

From the opening scene – set in a raucous Bangkok as thousands of people are celebrating New Year’s Eve, until our hero causes chaos as he attempts to assassinate a villain – to the white-knuckle ride of beautiful locations, fast cars, glamorous women and dead bodies that follows, The Gray Man makes no bones about its intentions. 

The £170 million movie, Netflix’s most expensive film ever, brazenly takes its inspiration from James Bond and at one point, when our hero – a CIA agent who always has a smart one-liner to hand – is asked why he goes by the name Six, he replies, ‘because 007 was taken’. And Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page, who’s been tipped as a future 007, plays a creepy CIA boss. 

Based on the first in a series of books by Mark Greaney about the global hunt for Six when he goes on the run after discovering a dark CIA secret, the project has been written and directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, the men behind the Marvel blockbusters Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. 

The Gray Man has that sort of scale of ambition and you can certainly see where the money went, not just in its superstar cast (Ryan Gosling as Six is joined by Page, Bond Girl Ana de Armas, Captain Amer­ica Chris Evans and Hollywood legend Billy Bob Thornton), but on the sumptuous sets in locations including Thailand, Croatia and Azerbaijan. In addition, 21 bespoke sets were built inside a former Boeing hangar in LA. 

An international crew of more than 1,000 people were employed, and the action scenes are some of the most explosive ever seen on screen. As well as a dramatic fight on a plane, the biggest set-piece takes place in Prague where a square in the old town was closed for ten days to film it. 

‘It was ten days of gunfire, explosions and car crashes,’ says Joe Russo. ‘It was mayhem. It’s the film’s most complex sequence with hundreds of extras and vehicles.’ 

Another sequence in Prague required a real tram and two replicas. ‘We had an actual city tram that runs on tracks, and we also had a bus that runs on wheels but looks exactly like a tram,’ says Anthony. 

‘Because it was on tyres, it could move faster and on streets that don’t have tracks. Then on an outdoor lot we had a stationary replica tram that could rock and shake. 

‘You have to approach a scene like that almost like it’s its own movie.’

No wonder the film has been a ten-year project for the Russos. ‘It was clear the book had come from an immense amount of research,’ says Anthony.

‘We’re always looking for interesting ways into a genre. Spies have to be able to move without being seen, and the Gray Man is a spy to the nth degree.’ 

Gosling plays Court Gentry, the gray man of the title. A morally grey character, when we meet him in flashback he’s in jail for murder. 

Chris Evans (pictured) is the CIA killer on Six’s tail. Unlike Bond, whose motivation is mostly patriotism, for Six this is just a job

He’s plucked from prison by CIA agent Donald Fitzroy (Thornton), having been given the choice of another 40 years inside or the chance to become an assassin in the CIA’s Sierra programme. He chooses the latter and is assigned the name Sierra Six. 

When we encounter him again he’s been doing the job for 17 years, while trying to maintain some sort of moral compass – he only kills bad guys. But when he learns a dark secret about the CIA he goes on the run with incriminating evidence. 

‘It’s the first time in his life he’s had any kind of power,’ says Gosling, who describes Six as ‘an analogue hero in a digital world’. His moral ambiguity is reflected in the film as the CIA becomes the villain. 

Unlike Bond, whose motivation is mostly patriotism, for Six this is just a job. ‘It’s got a complicated hero and it asks questions about whether you can trust the establishment,’ says Joe Russo. 

One person Six can trust is CIA agent Dani Miranda, played by Ana de Armas, who like Six is disillusioned with her superiors. The CIA then sends psychopathic hit man Lloyd Hansen (Evans) after them. 

The CIA’s Sierra squad is hea­ded by creepy Denny Carmichael, played by Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page (pictured), who has been tipped as a future Bond

‘I don’t get the chance to play roles like this often, that’s not how I’m seen,’ says Evans, who sports a moustache for the role. ‘As an actor you’re dying to do stuff like that. As for the moustache, the moment I saw it I thought, ‘There he is, there’s this psycho.’ 

Meanwhile, the Sierra squad is hea­ded by creepy Denny Carmichael, played by Page. ‘There’s nothing that isn’t in this movie,’ he says. 

‘It has this, ‘How is this dude still on his feet?’ factor, as well as the suave suits and sophistication of Bond and the hyper-real, hyper-violence of the Bourne trilogy. It just smashes it all in and makes something tastier.’ 

With ten more novels in the Gray Man series, the plan is that we’ll see lots more of Six if this film is a hit. 

• The Gray Man is in cinemas and streaming on Netflix now.