Locked away on a swelteringly hot day with nothing more to do than watch movies. I chose two, both by Netflix. The first was a great movie with Stephen and Robbie Amell, called Code 8. A great film about superpowered humans and how they built the current word they live in and then how they are feared and all but outlawed by non-powered people. A great movie that I highly recommend.
Next up was The Gray Man. Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas are great in this film. There is a lot of fun moments in the movie and shows, once again, that Chris can act his America’s Ass off. If you have Netflix, give this one a watch. Ana really shines in her role as a CIA operative. Even the little girl who plays Clair is pretty good in this. As far as anything new, there are some fresh takes on some old situations, but it is basically a Marvelesqe movie by the Russo brothers. It’s what Black Widow could have been.
Wiki Spoilers…
In 2003, senior CIA official Donald Fitzroy visits a prisoner. Eight years earlier the prisoner was a minor convicted of killing his abusive father to protect his brother. Fitzroy offers the man his freedom in exchange for working as an assassin in the CIA’s Sierra program.
In 2021, on a mission in Bangkok, the murderer, “Sierra Six,” is working with fellow CIA agent Dani Miranda to assassinate a target suspected of selling off national security secrets. He is unable to do so stealthily without harming civilians and attacks the target directly, mortally wounding him. Before dying, the target reveals that he worked in the Sierra program as Sierra Four, and hands Six an encrypted drive detailing the corruption of CIA official Denny Carmichael, who is the lead agent on the assassination mission. Carmichael is elusive about the true purpose of the mission and the contents of the drive when confronted by Six, and Six refuses evacuation from Bangkok with Carmichael’s men, calling a now-retired Fitzroy to request extraction.
Carmichael hires mercenary Lloyd Hansen, a former CIA agent kicked out of the agency for his sociopathic tendencies, to track down Six and retrieve the drive. Hansen does so by kidnapping Fitzroy’s niece Claire, forcing Fitzroy to authorize Six’s murdered by the extraction team. However, Six kills them and escapes.
Frustrated, Carmichael sends his subordinate Suzanne Brewer to oversee Hansen and keep him in line. Hansen keeps Claire hostage in a mansion in Croatia, where he has based his operations. Hansen also puts a bounty on Six’s head to attract mercenaries and assassins to hunt him down. Six heads to Vienna to find Claire’s pacemaker’s serial number from Laszlo Sosa, but Sosa betrays him for the bounty. Six escapes just as Hansen arrives with his team and is rescued by Miranda. Miranda’s reputation is in tatters following the Bangkok mission and she initially plans to bring him in to salvage her career at the CIA. Six convinces her to drive him to Cahill’s apartment, where she decrypts the drive, which reveals the extent of Carmichael’s corruption on behalf of a mysterious benefactor working for a shadow government.
Hansen sends several teams of assassins to Cahill’s home, and the terminally ill Cahill blows up her home to give Six and Miranda a chance to escape. Six is arrested and handcuffed in the square. A shootout in the streets of Prague follows and Six escapes on a tram. A long chase and gun battle ensues, and Six is saved by Miranda, in Cahill’s bulletproof car. The two infiltrate a hospital to track down Claire through the wireless signal broadcast from her pacemaker. The mercenary “Lone Wolf” steals the drive from them, knocking them out, and brings the drive to Hansen.
Six and Miranda follow the pacemaker to Hansen’s base. Miranda creates a distraction while Six infiltrates the mansion and rescues Fitzroy and Claire. Fitzroy is mortally wounded as they flee and sacrifices himself in a failed attempt to kill Hansen. Miranda knocks out Hansen’s men, but Lone Wolf narrowly escapes. He defeats Miranda in a fight but gives her the drive, having become disgusted with Hansen’s willingness to kill children and his lack of morals.
Hansen manages to take Claire hostage and drags her into a hedge maze. After a standoff, Hansen lets go of Claire and fights with Six. Before Six can kill him, Hansen is shot and killed by Brewer, who tells Six that she plans to pin Carmichael’s actions on Hansen in order to gain leverage over him. Furthermore, Brewer pledges Claire’s safety but only if Six continues to work for the CIA. Six and Miranda are forced to co-operate in the cover-up, where ultimately no action is taken against Carmichael. After the debriefing at the CIA headquarters, Miranda threatens to kill Carmichael if any harm comes to Claire. Six escapes custody and frees Claire, who is being held at a secret location.
