The Grey (2012) Review

The Grey (2012)

Right off the bat, I have to warn curious audiences that the scene in the trailer for “The Grey” where Liam Neeson tapes broken bottles to his hand and then stares down a wolf does not play out the way you think it does. Indeed, the whole movie does not play out the way you may think.

This is not a movie about Liam Neeson crashing in the snowy middle-of-nowhere and then battling wolves for two hours to survive. While “The Grey” does provide enough scenes of wolf mutilation/attacks to entertain and even terrify, it is a much more somber film that deals with what it means to live and what it means to die. This is no more evident than the way that the broken bottle scene plays out in the actual film.

Ottway (Neeson) is a part of an oil drilling team in Alaska that feels cut off from the rest of the world. He is more refined than the roughnecks that he works with, and doesn’t really take to them as friends. But when their plane crashes in the Alaskan tundra, he must work with them if they are all to survive not only the pack of wolves whose territory has been invaded, but the elements of nature wearing them down. The one true thing pushing Ottway forward is the thought of returning to his wife back home.

The plane crash is a bravura sequence that succeeds in conveying the terror and helplessness of the situation, as pieces of the plane chip away and the screams of the men are heard loudly. It ranks up there with the train crash from “The Fugitive” on the intensity scale. And yet, the men only find themselves in greater danger after this disaster.

While searching through the wreckage, the men come across one of their friends who was mortally wounded. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the film, as Ottway “guides” and eases the man into his painful and inevitable death. It’s stirring and touching, thanks to the strong acting from all involved. Neeson may be the only star here, but character actors Joe Anderson, Dermot Mulroney, and Frank Grillo round out the cast.

Shortly thereafter, the pack of grey wolves begin to descend on the survivors, who begin getting picked off one by one. The lengths that these wolves go to when attacking the men stretch plausibility, as wolves often avoid humans, but I was able to suspend my disbelief. What was troublesome was how director Joe Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces” and “The A-Team”) chose to film most of these scenes at night and in close-up. It was hard to make out exactly what was happening during a few of the attacks, which took me out of the moment. Carnahan also arguably uses one too many jump scares when the wolves pop up, slightly cheapening the film’s more philosophical bent.

Which brings me to why “The Grey” is more than just another survival tale (or one where Liam Neeson punches a wolf in the face). When they’re sitting around their campfire battling the cold and mother nature, these men are often speculating what they are living for when they get home and how it may feel to die in this situation (recalling the scene with the dying crewman). Even though we only learn the basics of who these men are (Example: loved ones and base personalities), I still felt a connection to them, even the token asshole of the group.

This is especially true of Ottway, who is constantly imagining his wife in flashback throughout the film. This recalls Neeson’s other action movie, “Taken,” and his performance here is even better than that one. There’s a scene where he calls out the Almighty on why he’s being punished in this wilderness, reaching an emotional peak of the film.

It is the true climax of this film’s story, one that is more emotional than visceral. Those expecting a giant battle between Neeson and these wolves will be disappointed, but the ambiguous nature of the ending felts perfectly with the poem Ottway recites in the film, “Live and die on this day.” For a movie released in January, “The Grey” is a surprisingly good, scary, and even heartfelt film that should be seen.

 3/4    Rating Criteria