In the Grey: the same old Guy Ritchie. But more fun

Let's start with a curious detail: In the Grey has a production history quite a bit longer than the film itself.  

And that's because Guy Ritchie shot it in Tenerife over just 35 days between September and October 2023. However, the film will not reach Spanish cinemas until September 2026.  

Three years of waiting for a 96-minute film that, once it starts, barely takes a breather. There's pace here. Lots of pace. Pure Guy Ritchie.

For the occasion, the director has also brought together Jake Gyllenhaal, Henry Cavill, , Eiza González, , Rosamund Pike and Carlos Bardem, Javier's less famous brother.

It's quite a spectacular cast, and the film benefits from it.

Good-looking, charismatic people for a hugely entertaining film.

Plot of In the Grey

The plot begins with a job involving the recovery of a large sum of money lent to a mobster which, as tends to happen in these films, ends up requiring quite a bit more planning than initially expected.

From there, an operation comes together in which every character has a role, and much of the appeal lies in discovering how the hell they are going to pull it off.

It isn't Ocean's Eleven. Here it's easy to follow what is happening at all times. In fact, Ritchie overexplains a few parts, which ends up weakening a later surprise because by the time it arrives you've already been given all quite a few clues about what was going on.

But it didn't bother me too much either, because the whole film is built to move at considerable speed.

Probably too much if you're expecting a pseudo-realistic plan. But I don't think anyone is going to watch In the Grey to check whether it offers a credible portrait of how international asset recovery works.

Ritchie repeats the formula, but this time he doesn't overdo it

Guy Ritchie has spent quite a few years making variations on a set of ideas he particularly likes: charismatic criminals, highly professional types, money, multilayered plans, fast conversations and editing that jumps from one piece to another until it shows you how everything fits together.

Here he does it again.

So if you're tired of his formula, In the Grey is hardly going to reveal a new director to you. I will say, however, that I enjoyed his work more this time than on other occasions. Maybe because of the cast, maybe because he seems considerably more restrained than usual.

Especially with the running time.

The official Spanish runtime is 96 minutes and I think it suits the film perfectly. There aren't too many detours or subplots that end up swallowing half the movie. Here the film gets straight to the point from minute one, it grabs you and doesn't let go until the credits appear.

That makes the time fly by, which is an important virtue when your main goal is to entertain.

The cast does much of the work

It helps that the cast is full of people with enough charisma to carry a film on their own.

Gyllenhaal is very good, Cavill is too, and Eiza González fits perfectly into that kind of character who always seems to have the situation under control. Rosamund Pike barely has to do anything to make herself noticed whenever she appears.

In fact, strangely -or perhaps not so strangely- one of the things I liked most was precisely the conversations between González and Pike.

And not because they feel natural.

They're the kind of conversations that exist only in movies, specifically Guy Ritchie movies. Two people firing brilliant answers back at each other at full speed for several rounds in a row.

They work because they're well written, they're funny and both actresses know exactly how to deliver them.

Carlos Bardem is perhaps the one who stands out least in the ensemble. Not because he does a bad job, but because everyone else's screen presence is so strong. Several times during the film I thought Pedro Pascal would have fit that role perfectly and turned the cast into something truly spectacular.

The setup is better than the execution

All the action works, but curiously I enjoyed watching them prepare the operation more than the payoff itself.

Ritchie is good at this sort of thing. He explains what the protagonists need, what problem they have to solve, who they need to convince and what role each character plays, while the editing manages to make something potentially boring entertaining.

When the actual execution begins it still works, because the chases and shoot-outs are well filmed, but by then you know too much about the plan and some of its ability to surprise has been lost.

Everything works, but everything feels familiar

The main problem I have with In the Grey isn't that it does anything especially badly, but that almost everything feels familiar.

We've already seen plenty of films about teams of specialists carrying out impossible plans, and we've also seen Ritchie himself use a very similar way of telling these stories several times.

I don't think that's a serious problem per se. A film doesn't need to invent a genre to be good, and this one delivers exactly what it promises, but it does put a ceiling on it.

It needs a little more ambition, a different idea or a genuinely powerful surprise before I could recommend it to someone who doesn't normally enjoy this kind of cinema.

Verdict

All in all, In the Grey struck me as a very good and highly entertaining action film.

It doesn't break new ground, Ritchie repeats many of his usual tricks and some situations start to fall apart if you analyse them too closely. But the running time is very well judged, the editing works, all the action delivers and, above all, the cast keeps it fun even when they're simply sitting around talking.

And that's the right way to approach it, because in return you get a very enjoyable stretch of high-end action.

If you want a particularly original film or a plot that surprises you, there are better options.

If what you want is to spend an hour and a half watching a great cast set up and execute a complicated plan at full speed, it more than delivers.

In the Grey technical details

Field	Details
Title	In the Grey
Original title	In the Grey
Release year	2026
Production year	2023
Runtime	96 minutes
Director	Guy Ritchie
Screenplay	Guy Ritchie
Main cast	Jake Gyllenhaal, Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Rosamund Pike and Carlos Bardem
Genre	Action / thriller / comedy
Country	United Kingdom
Release in Spain	18 September 2026
Distributor	Diamond Films España