In The Grey

First announced in 2023, Guy Ritchie’s latest has finally found its way to a release window, with a trailer leaning hard into his signatures: silence with style, dialogue with panache, and a hard-hitting music drop.

The film pairs Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal, who are both Ritchie alumni (Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and The Covenant, respectively)—as devil-may-care, bantering operatives tasked with infiltrating a private island to reclaim a billion-dollar fortune from a ruthless despot.

After a six-second micro-teaser, we’re thrown in medias res to a pulsing beat and the intrigue of a heist in motion. Notice the soundtrack dropping out as Gyllenhaal’s character delivers a mic-drop moment at 0:28. This leads directly to the studio title card (Black Bear) and the first vestiges of the song to be used momentarily. We hear it again at 0:42, synched to a title card (“when billions get stolen”)—two hits of the brass, though we don’t yet know from what tune.

It happens again at 0:46 (“they are the pros”), and finally, “Show Me What You Got” by Frank Williams and the Rocketeers (featuring Little Beaver) lands at 0:52, just as we’re introduced to Bronco (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sid (Henry Cavill). Note also how the first line (“hey mama”) lands right on a shot for Eiza González’ character.

Will Quiney as music supervisor knows what he’s doing here. Where other action trailers might reach for something more obviously hard hitting as high octane, Ritchie’s films have long traded in the art of the crate dig, reaching for records that go far beyond a top-30 mod night throwback. Seeing as The Rocketeers’ catalog amounts to a handful of singles released on Deep City between 1965 and 1967, its appearance is a low-key flex.

The score, meanwhile, is by Christopher Benstead, who has become Ritchie’s mainstay collaborator. Benstead’s range means he can pivot between menace and playfulness within a single cue, and sometimes at the same time. When Benstead and the Rocketeers collide, we somehow hear both—audaciously toeing a line between play and drama that reinforces both dynamics of the film.

At the minute mark we get another pause, for another snarky aside by Gyllenhaal (“I just told you—it’s silk”). The director’s title card follows, reminding us of Ritchie’s pedigree (Sherlock Holmes, Snatch, etc). At 1:13, we get a really interesting musical and tonal juxtaposition—the violins are playing a straight thriller soundtrack, yet we’re still getting these syncopated hits in the brass against physical violence, letting these two moods playfully collide. At 1:18 we hear it again in the more extended montage sequence, coordinating between dialogue, visual, and music: “tick every tock,” “move every wheel”, “lick every stamp” our co-stars deadpan in some kind of Motown recitative. Then the music drops out as they count down from three to make way for the final action montage, with the track coming back in full force (trailerized, of course).

So—musically speaking, is this quintessential Ritchie, or Ritchie on auto? Does it matter? It’s hard to argue when the formula works.

In the Grey arrives in theatres May 15.

— Curtis Perry