When the CIA's most skilled operative, whose true identity is known to none, accidentally uncovers dark agency secrets, a psychopathic former colleague puts a bounty on his head, setting off a global manhunt by international assassins.
Six, a highly-skilled assassin in the deep-cover Sierra program of the CIA, is the agency's best merchant of death. However, a mission goes bad and now Six is on the run from the CIA with sociopathic former agent Lloyd Hansen hot on his trail. Aided by agent Dani Miranda and handler Donald Fitzroy, Six must be his most ruthless to avoid Hansen, who will stop at nothing to bring him down.—Diane
Six is part of the CIA's Sierra program, a program whereby non-agents are recruited to fulfill certain missions on an off-the-books contract basis. In completing one such contract he discovers that the man he killed was a fellow Sierra member, Four. Four was killed because he had incriminating information on Carmichael, a senior CIA operative. Now Six has that information and Carmichael will do anything to get it.—grantss
"The Gray Man" is based on Mark Greaney's debut novel. It follows Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) (a CIA black ops mercenary who is forced to go on the run after uncovering incriminating secrets about the agency), who is recruited by CIA agent Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) for their Sierra program. Eighteen years later, we see that this program is being headed by Denny Carmichael (Rege-Jean Page), with Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick) by his side. They've sent Six to Bangkok to kill someone called Dining Car (Callan Mulvey), who is allegedly selling national secrets to anti-national elements. But things start to deviate from the plan when Six decides that he is not going to take the shot because he can't (mentally) afford the collateral damage (Dining car was in a crowded restaurant and had kids near him. There was no way to kill him without killing innocent civilians). And when he goes completely off script in order to get the job done, he finds out about the CIA's deepest, darkest secret.
In an attempt to get away from Six, Dining Car jumps through a window and falls into the fireworks section of the hotel. Six goes after him, which leads to a fight sequence, and it concludes with Six mortally wounding Dining Car. But in the middle of all that mess, Dining Car reveals that he's not some random "bad dude" like Carmichael keeps saying. He is Six's predecessor, Sierra Four. Just to be sure that Dining Car/Sierra Four is telling the truth, Six asks him about his recruiter. Four says that, just like Six, he was recruited by Fitzroy and trained at a Dark Site in Tel Aviv. He also says that Carmichael is no good and is shutting down the Sierra program by killing one agent after another. And that he's probably going to kill Six next. Before dying, Four gives Six his necklace and tells him to bring Carmichael down.
Six passes this newfound information to Dani Miranda (Ana De Armas) (a CIA agent who allies with Six) before disappearing from the scene. The CIA takes over the scene, and when they find out that the necklace is missing, Carmichael panics and calls Six, who denies that he has the locket (with a drive in it) with him. Instead, he goes to a gaming center to check out the drive. In it, he finds one photo of Carmichael and several locked folders and files. Dani tries to bring him in, but he refuses. He mails the drive to an undisclosed location and calls up Fitzroy (who's in Baku) to tell him what he knows about Carmichael. And he predicts that after what he has done, he is going to come after him next. Fitzroy says he is going to send an extraction team to get him out of there. But even that goes sideways as Carmichael sends Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) (a psychopathic former CIA agent who is hired by the CIA to capture Six) after Fitzroy and Six. Lloyd was kicked out of the CIA within 6 months for unsanctioned torture and inability to control his impulses.
Lloyd kidnaps Fitzroy's niece, Claire Fitzroy (Julia Butters), and uses her as leverage against Fitzroy and Six. Six was made Claire's godfather & looked after her when Margaret Cahill (Alfre Woodard) commanded him to (Fitz knew the business he was in and wanted someone to care for her if he died in the line of duty. Cahill was Fitz's boss). Claire was born with a heart condition and has a pacemaker. During the period, Six learned that Claire's pacemaker could be traced remotely by the hospital.Fitz orders his extraction team to kill Sex, but Six manages to defeat and kill all of them mid-air. Six calls Fitz and understands that Claire has been kidnapped.Lloyd kidnaps Fitzroy and tells him that he is going to throw every mercenary in the world in Six's general direction until he yields. Laszlo Sosa (Wagner Moura) is a undercover guy who creates fake passports etc. Six meets him for a new passport, but Laszlo had already received Lloyd's offer of $50m (as did every other crook in the world) and he manages to trap Six, but he manages to escape right after Lloyd gets there to nab him. Dani comes to Six's rescue and takes him to Cahill (as Six says that he dispatched the drive to Cahill) to freshen up, re-calibrate, and understand what they are dealing with. Cahill says that Sierra Four got his hands on Carmichael's "dirty laundry." He has apparently conducted unsanctioned assassinations, torture, and bombings with Lloyd's help. And the drive contains all of that information. If it gets out, both Carmichael and Lloyd will be accused of committing war crimes.
Dani asks the most obvious question: what is Carmichael getting out of all this? Cahill says that it is "shadow government stuff," which puts his little experiment above his pay grade and jurisdiction. Dani assumes that there must be someone who is acting as Carmichael's guardian angel. Cahill agrees because someone has to cover up for the amount of collateral damage Carmichael and Lloyd are leaving behind. She thinks that somebody very powerful is pulling the strings. And since Four tried to sell all of this information to the highest bidder, Carmichael got him killed. Dani says they should leak it to the press. Six says he is going to hold onto the drive until he gets Fitzroy and Claire out of danger. As soon as Cahill gives Six the directions to her car (that they can use to get to Fitzroy and Claire), Lloyd's squads hit them hard. Lloyd blows up the entire town square as he moves in multiple heavily armed teams to take out Six and Dani. Suzanne is clearly not OK with the tactics and knows that this is way beyond the law and outside their SOPs.
Although Six and Dani barely manage to escape the assault in Vienna, they fail to notice that they have a tail in the form of one Avik San (Dhanush). They get to a hospital to trace Claire's pacemaker (and they find out that she and Fitzroy are in Croatia), and that's where they are attacked by Avik. Avik manages to escape with the necklace (which has the drive in it), and wounds Six and Dani enough to stall them for a while. He reaches Croatia and hands over the drive to Lloyd. Under the guise of getting captured, Six and Dani start to clear the soldiers patrolling the perimeter of the mansion in which Fitzroy and Claire are being held hostage.
Avik learns about the fact that Lloyd is holding a girl hostage (and intends to kill her), and he has some kind of an awakening. That doesn't stop him from almost killing Dani. He just stops at one point and gives over the drive to Dani. Six and Dani blow up the mansion. The explosion causes things to go haywire, and the drive leaves Lloyd and lands in Avik's hands. Before Lloyd figures out Six's plan, he starts to get Fitzroy and Claire out of the mansion. Fitzroy gets shot, and he uses himself as a suicide bomber to stall Lloyd while Six gets Claire out of there. Lloyd eventually catches up to Six, holds Claire hostage, and leads him into a literal maze. But then he lets her go to engage in some fisticuffs with Six.
Six almost strangles the life out of Lloyd. But Suzanne steps in and kills Lloyd. Then she gives her little monologue about how she, Carmichael, and Lloyd went to Harvard together, which is where Carmichael and Lloyd's Bromance brewed. And although she wanted to get rid of Lloyd a long time ago, she couldn't. Six unintentionally gave her that chance, and she took it. She explains that now Lloyd is going to posthumously take the fall for everything that happened in the movie. Six is going to act as a witness while she holds Claire hostage. She says that once that's over, Six is going to go back to jail, and if he behaves, she'll let him out to go on some missions.
Suzanne delivers the drive to Carmichael, who destroys it. Maybe she kept a copy. Joe Russo makes a cameo as some dude in the CIA, who apparently believes that Lloyd Hansen created all this ruckus. Dani warns Carmichael that if anything happens to Claire, then she is going to go rogue. Suzanne and Carmichael pay Six a visit, only to find out that he has escaped from the high-security hospital. Where has he gone? Of course, to the "secure location" where the CIA has kept Claire. He apparently kills everyone and gets Claire out of there. So, in the sequel, you'll definitely have the CIA tracking down Six and Claire. But if the Russos are planning to adapt all the books in Greaney's literary series, the sequel (likely titled "On Target") will find Six facing off with an old comrade from his past whom he thought was dead, who will force him to conduct a near impossible kidnapping.
