‘The Gray Man‘ starts with Billy Bob Thornton’s Fitzroy recruiting Ryan Gosling’s character while he’s incarcerated, offering to commute his sentence if he agrees to serve the CIA. At this time, audiences learn that Gosling’s character has killed a bad guy, but Fitzroy muses that he liked it and would like to keep doing it. 

The scene then shifts to Gosling as Sierra Six, a CIA asset who’s an expert at killing. 

Over the course of the movie, Ana de Armas’ Dani Miranda finally asks him point blank about why he went to prison. Six is initially cagey about it, but Miranda makes it clear his answer will impact whether he can rely on her help or not. Considering this to be a fair proposal, Six launches into his tale. 

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His father was abusive and often violent to Six and his brother, doling out beatings and torture to toughen them. At one time, the situation became such that either their father or Six’s brother would cave. 

Six decided it would be his father and shot him with a gun he found in their house. While he felt he’d done the right thing, others felt he should be jailed for what he did. 

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The kind of abuse Gosling’s character went through as a child becomes evident in another flashback that takes place during his final fight with Chris Evans’ Lloyd Hansen. As the sociopathic private contractor holds Six’s head under the water, we see how Six’s father held his head under the water for defying him. While he thrashed underwater struggling for breath as a kid, the experience set Six off better while matching Hansen. Remaining calm, the ex-CIA asset is able to get the upper hand and get out of the potentially deadly situation where he could have drowned.