The Gray Man is the 457th episode of the Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Spencer Gilbert, Danielle Radford and Lon Harris. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the 2022 action thriller film The Gray Man. It was published on August 2, 2022. It is 7 minutes and 21 seconds long. It has been viewed over 100,000 times.
Script[]
In a world where audiences will only show up for Marvel movies, Netflix will hire some Marvel directors (Anthony and Joe Russo), Marvel writers (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely), and Marvel actors (Chris Evans and Jessica Henwick) to Marvel-ize the spy genre by, let's say, about 15%.
Six: You must be Lloyd.
Lloyd: What gave it away?
Six: The white pants, the trash 'stache. It just... It leans Lloyd.
Ohh, yeah, give me that good snark!
Donald: I get it. You're glib.
Ahhh...
The Gray Man
The Russos went from directing this...
G.O.B. (Arrested Development): (singing) It ain't easy bein' white... (through his puppet) It ain't easy bein' brown...
...to directing this (shows the final battle from Avengers: Endgame), and then... Cherry. (shows Cherry doing the robot while holding a flag) <quietly coughing> Yay! Now, the Ru-Bros are back, armed with the rights to one of those books your dad buys at the airport (The Gray Man by Mark Greany), but instead of falling asleep on a neck pillow after two chapters and a ginger ale, you'll fall asleep on your couch while Netflix burns 200 million bucks in the background. <yawn> I wonder what's on TikTok? (pulls up a phone while an action scene plays) Hehe... Pink sauce. Gross.
You've seen Ryan Gosling play a cool, silent driver (shows The Driver in Driver), cool, silent astronaut (shows Neil Armstrong in First Man), and cool, silent future detective (shows K in Blade Runner 2049), but you've never seen him play a cool, silent criminal before, have you? (shows Luke Glanton in The Place Beyond the Pines) ...Okay, cool, silent criminal turned off-the-book CIA assassin; how's that?
Claire: They made me stay in bed. "How long they make you stay in bed for?" Quite a long time. Several weeks, actually. "Oh, hope you're okay." Better now, Six. Thanks for asking.
Thrill as he transforms into "Sierra Six", a character who lives in that gray area between "Jason Bourne" and "Jason Bourne with mono"...
Six: That's the most sleep I've had in 36 hours.
Dulin: Need anything?
Six: Just a nap.
...and follow along as he kicks ass from BAKU, to MONACO, to CHIANG MAI, to LONDON, to HONG KONG, to VIENNA, to BERLIN, to CROATIA, to PRAGUE, to WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Wow, those are big titles. -- while we learn bits and pieces of his mysterious criminal past.
Six: ...my father fancied himself a real macho man. [...] --and, uh... He started laying into my brother so...
Wait, all he did was shoot his dad? He's a Florida man! That's, like, nothing! (pulls up multiple "Florida Man" headlines) Screw Kang; make the next big Marvel villain Florida Man!
Hot on his trail is Stupid Sexy Flanders-- Wait, I mean, Lloyd Handsome-- No, I mean, Lloyd Hansen. God, those kicks are distracting... (sexy music plays as Lloyd sits on a chair) Chris Evans shines as America's Assh*le, who clearly watched a bunch of Nic Cage to prep for the job.
Lloyd: Would someone mind shooting the man HANDCUFFED TO THE BENCH?! / 'Cause I got SHOT IN THE ASS, Suzanne!
Peter Loew (Vampire's Kiss): --Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z!!
Lloyd: MORONS!! (shoots one corpse and kicks another)
Follow their relentless game of dad-and-mouse, as Six must risk his life to save his ex... boss's niece, I think (?), and uncover a horrible truth: the CIA has done some shady stuff in the past.
Suzanne: We're going to prison for this.
No, you really aren't.
CIA Agent: --this committee and myself have decided to exonerate the three of you in this affair.
See?
Strap in for action scenes that push the boundaries... of how much smoke and debris you can hide the action behind (montage of fight scenes in smoky environments), that cuts around like a Taken 3 editor on Ritalin (montage of action scenes with multiple cuts), with the occasional clearly shot scene to show that yeah, Gosling does have moves; all this other crap is on purpose. (shows a five-second-long fight sequence) You know, not bad, but how would it look with some random drone shots mixed in? (montage of sequences filmed using drones) Like they're being attacked by a bird. Got it.
Enter a world shrouded in mystery, raising tons of unanswered questions for the already-greenlit sequels, like... "Why is Jessica Henwick stuck in the 'person behind a bank of monitors' role?"; "Why did Bridgerton leave his hit show to take the other 'person behind a bank of monitors' role?"; "Why do all the spies keep exploding?" (montage of characters blowing themselves up with grenades to take out enemies); "Since when did 'likes gum' become a personality trait?"...
Donald: "Bubblicious Watermelon Wave." What do you say?
Six: There is no other kind.
Sully: Or you can just go with the Bubblicious. Jesus.
Nate: No, this is Bubble Yum.
..."Can someone go to Harvard without forcing it into every conversation?"...
Denny: I went from Harvard, to analysis, to the DO's desk in eight years.
Lloyd: Well, no one goes to Harvard to play football.
Denny: You did.
Suzanne: --we all went to Harvard together.
Six: (groans)
...and "Wouldn't this have worked better if Renny Harlin directed it in the 90's with, like, Christian Slater and John Travolta?" Yeah, come on; you know it would be.
So now that Netflix is in a desperate search for the next mega-hit (a Deadline article with the title "Netflix, Joe & Anthony Russo And Ryan Gosling Are All In On 'The Gray Man' As Sequel & Spinoff In The Works" pops up), they're throwing everything they've got at a franchise that's like Bond without the style...
Six: --007 was taken...
...Mission: Impossible without the real stunts (shows a CGI-heavy action sequence involving a crashing plane), and Marvel without the IP...
Lloyd: DAMN!! THAT STINGS!
...because at their core, Netflix knows they're just one bad quarter away from becoming Redbox without the pee smell.
Starring: Gray Man, Ooahoh, Fighter of the White Man, Ooahoh (Ryan Gosling as "Sierra Six"); Captain American Foreign Policy (Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen); Ana (Ana de Armas as Dani Miranda); Fitzroy and the Tantrums (Billy Bob Thornton as Donald Fitzroy); Cringerton (Régé-Jean Page as Denny Carmichael); Iron Pissed (Jessica Henwick as Suzanne Brewer); "That Was the Best Acting I've Ever Seen" (Julia Butters as Claire Fitzroy); Wait, You CIA Contactors Are Killing People? That's It, I'm Out. (Dhanush as Avik San/Lone Wolf)...
Lone Wolf: I don't care about the money anymore. These are not honorable people.
...and OK I Surrender... HaHA! (montage of characters fighting back after faking their surrender)
Bourne Again
The honest title for The Gray Man was ‘Bourne Again’. Titles designed by Robert Holtby.
Lloyd: Every grade-A wet team from here to Reykjavík will be vying for the prestige of killing the infamous Sierra Six.
There's your spin-off: the Icelandic team no one believes in until the world is overrun by elves and fairi-- Aw, crap; I just pitched Bright 2, didn't I? Welp, never mind...
Viewer's Comments[]
Say "I'm epic voice guy and I'm here to party" - Stephen M
Say "Lieutenant Uhura establish communications" for Nichelle Nichols (Rest In Love) - DaQuan Timberlake
Say " Suffering suck-a-tash" - Vinny Lewis
Hilarious video! Can you please say "Hi im Saul Goodman, did you know that you have rights? The constitution says you do." In your badass epic voice? - TheMovieMobster
Trivia[]
- The second comment in the viewer's comments pays tribute to Nichelle Nichols, an actress best known for playing Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek series and its accompanying feature films, who passed away on July 30, 2022, at the age of 89.
Reception[]
Production Credits[]
Voice Narration: Jon Bailey aka Epic Voice Guy
Title Design: Robert Holtby
Written by: Spencer Gilbert, Danielle Radford, & Lon Harris
Produced by: Spencer Gilbert
Associate Producer: Ryan O'Toole
Edited by: Kevin Williamsen
Post-Production Supervisor: Emin Bassavand
Post-Production Coordinator: Mikołaj Kossakowski
Assistant Editor: Rebecca Castaneda
Director of Video Production: Max Dionne