The Gray Man, Netflix’s latest original Movie, starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, premiered worldwide on 22 July. Since then, it has been at the top of the most streamed movies list.

The Gray Man’s over-the-top budget

The Russo Brothers-directed movie has failed to gain the critical appraisal it had expected since its announcement two years ago. Netflix has been promoting The Gray Man for the last two years, from creating a buzz around its cast to the trailer release and even releasing the movie in theatres for a limited period. And, why shouldn’t they? After all, they spent $200 million on it.

The budget, alone, can excite many to check out the movie. Given movies like The Batman and Tenet were made on the same budget. But, unlike them, Netflix rarely invests in making a movie better than signing the A-listers to create buzz. Robert Pattinson received just $3 million for The Batman, the most-awaited movie of the year. While, both Evans and Gosling received a whopping sum of $20 million each!

What went wrong?

The Gray Man, if you went through it looking for a plot, doesn’t actually contain one. It’s pretty straightforward with no grey characters. From the beginning to the end, most of the characters maintained the nature of their characters i.e. if A is the bad guy, he will remain the bad guy till the end with no sense of self dilemma. The same goes for all the others.

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Many of the action sequences are the ones we have watched before in countless movies. The same chase throughout Europe, gun fights on the streets, a couple of near misses. It is nothing new. One of the plane scenes looks as if the camera was left inside a washing machine.

The only thing the budget was well utilised was the castle they shot in the latter half of the movie.

The cancel culture

Coming to Netflix and its quality control, it is getting worse with each passing day. Netflix is known for releasing more content than any of the other streaming services. It releases hundreds of shows throughout the year, many of which are lost in the sea for creating even more shows. They cancel most of the shows after one season.

Many shows that had the promise to become better over the seasons are dropped due to budget constraints. Shows like The OA, Everything Sucks!, Teenage Bounty Hunters, and The Order are just a few to name. Fans and creators even launched campaigns to bring The OA back for a final season, but it didn’t work. And, they do this to finance movies like Red Notice and The Gray Man.

Feeding khichdi after promising biryani

Another thing that Netflix gets wrong, especially in India, is how to advertise. They have been focussing more and more on Dhanush than the rest of the cast, which could have been a good thing if Dhanush had more than ten minutes of screen time and more dialogues to deliver. His role in the movie can’t justify the excitement he, Netflix and the media tried to create in India.

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The same happened with Huma Qureshi in Army of The Dead. Netflix tries to attract the Indian audience with one or two Indian actors in their movies but never offers them a role of significance. And, that leaves the Indian audience disappointed. So, they turn to other services that focus on India.

Netflix needs to control how to use its budgets and most of all hire a better scriptwriter to give a movie that is more than a one-time flick. Also, focus more on keeping the movies and shows on their platform than on advertising a movie with an actor who is doing an extended cameo.