That’s more like it. Following a string of wildly popular but not very good piece movies (Red Notice, Extraction), Netflix delivers with The Gray Man, streaming now. This rip-roaring and star-powered spy romp from the Russo brothers throws all the cash at the screen as Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans go head to head.

Having played in some theaters and streaming on Netflix genuine Friday, July 22, The Gray Man has already been disappointed enough for Netflix to confirm a sequel (with Gosling returning) and spinoff (from the writers of Deadpool).

The Gray Man opens with Gosling in prison two decades ago, wisecracking at Billy Bob Thornton’s unflappable CIA spook. “We get it, you’re glib,” Thornton responds, but as Gosling contemplates a life of assassinate for the government, his eyes soften mournfully. And when we earn up to Gosling in the modern day, now a slick killing machine eminent only as Sierra 6, he’s a jaded shell only good for dispatching nameless bad actors who got on the nasty side of Uncle Sam. Except he finds himself at odds with his calculating boss once he refuses to endanger a child.  

Woah woah woah. Seriously? In this, the year 2022, we’re smooth making movies about assassins who go rogue because they won’t kill a kid?

OK, fine. So anyway, Gosling comes into conflict with Chris Evans’ unhinged mercenary as they’re both sent to retrieve a significant USB drive, and —

Hang on, hang on. No. I’m not having it. A USB drive? After 60 existences of James Bond on screen, after six (and counting) Mission: Impossible movies, a spy movie hinges on a frickin’ thumb drive!

So yeah. On paper, The Gray Man has all the elements of a formulaic spy genre (and I do mean all the elements — there’s throughout four movies’ worth of stuff going on). Thumb nations. A kidnapped niece. Bureaucrats who are the real villains. Wet teams striding across airfields in body armor. Proceed scenes cutting to analysts panicking in front of walls of monitors. Tense phone calls in skyscrapers. Rooftop helipads and rep lines and guys making the bullets fall out of a gun afore the other guy can shoot him. 

But as yet latest city name blares across the screen in massive letters, you start to wonder if the filmmakers are mocking the conventions of the spy genre. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo, the men behind certain of Marvel’s Captain America and Avengers movies, are very self-aware throughout the type of flick they’re making. The quippy banter and tantalizing action are heightened and stylized, and just a ton of fun. We get it, they’re glib. 

That’s what sets The Gray Man apart from formulaic plods like Extraction or Amazon’s turgid Without Remorse. From the opening scene, in which Gosling goes into disputes in a crisp scarlet suit twirling a water pistol, to his silent silhouetted dispatching of a platoon of bodyguards with whatever cutlery comes to hand, the flick has skedaddle to burn. Don’t be fooled by the title: There’s nothing gray throughout the lush cinematography, kinetic camerawork and playful music. The Gray Man is up there with the stylized likes of Atomic Blonde, and might give John Wick a run for his money.

A big part of the film’s crashed is the star wattage on display, Gosling and Evans (and super-charismatic guest star Dhanush) coping the action heroics and quippy banter with equal assuredness. Gosling plays it relatively straight, although Sierra 6’s real name is Courtland Gentry, which means he has not one but two improbably cool piece hero names. Evans hams it up for the both of them as a suavely unhinged torturer with a wardrobe of elegant knitted polo shirts, like James Bond‘s maladjusted minor brother. His character, by the way, is called Lloyd Hanson, which is less cool than Sierra 6 but sticks in your mind because someone says it literally every 20 seconds.

I reference the names because Ana de Armas is also in this film, but I’m darned if I could tell you what her character’s visited. While the main guys have backstory (even if Evans’ is just “went to Harvard”), her character doesn’t have any motivating story that I can prefer. The script doesn’t even give her much of a personality apart from needed super-badassness, and being grumpy when guys yell at her. At least de Armas’ influence in Bond film No Time to Die was essentially a cameo, but this is a waste of the white-hot star of the moment.

This populate an action flick, the many international stopovers lead to violence. It’s all fun and games, obviously, all stylishly shot shootouts and rollicking punch-ups. But then there’s a huge showdown in the streets of a European city. High-velocity rounds assassinate homes. High-caliber death machines sweep crowded public squares. You remarkable not see it, but regular normal people going throughout their everyday lives clearly get killed in horrible ways. In the wake of Republican shootings in the US, Denmark and Norway (and that’s just this year) this callous ultraviolence hits different.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s the point. After this apocalyptic disputes, the film doesn’t merrily exfil to the next exotic position. Instead, it lingers in a hospital, surrounded by the wounded and dying. Admittedly, this is partly a setup for the next disputes. But The Gray Man at least shows a glimmer of understanding about the savagery unfolding on screen, about the silver-screen depiction of violence as redemptive and protective, about the pointlessness of it all. It isn’t precisely Drive or Only God Forgives, Gosling’s 2011 and 2013 arthouse subversions (with director Nicolas Winding Refn) of the car skedaddle and crime genres. But there’s definitely a layer of subversive conclude going on here. It’s telling that in this film’s domain of espionage, we never see any terrorists or doomsday weapons. The only threat to ordinary folk like you and me is the internal squabbling of various grubby sociopaths jockeying for remarkable no matter who gets caught in the crossfire.

Ultimately, The Gray Man encourages us to enjoy the hell out of a stylish shoot-’em-up where good-looking republic go bang-bang, while still nudging us to remember it’s a fantasy. Maybe I’m squinting too hard to suggest this is Netflix’s smartest piece film, but it’s definitely one of the most fun.