A surprisingly philosophical adventure film about a group of oil workers, led by Liam Neeson, who are trapped in the cold Alaska snows and threatened by a pack of vicious wolves. As they muse about their fates, the movie takes on an existential depth, sometimes at the expense of the mounting tension.
Starring: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney and Frank Grillo
Rating: Three and a half stars out of five
Joe Carnahan's The Grey is a stripped-down, boys-only picture of elemental dangers: a group of men are stranded in a frozen wilderness and threatened by voracious wolves. The animals aren't hungry, necessarily; they're attacking because "we don't belong here," one of the men says, an early hint that it's not just animals that are stalking the heroes, it's a pack of metaphors, as well.
Throw in a bit of late-night reminiscing -- about women and daughters; about fathers and a heedless God -- and you practically have Jack London, if not Ernest Hemingway.
Indeed, the cold existentialism of The Grey -- a feeling you get from the opening scene of lush, snow-covered mountains with the sounds of howling from somewhere within -- may be its biggest drawback. The Grey could possibly be too smart, or at least, too thoughtful, for its own good. Everyone loves a good philosophical talk around the campfire, but not when there are giant wolves to flee.
Liam Neeson stars as John, a man hired by an Alaska oil company to slaughter wolves near its refinery. He's worn out: by the company of ex-cons and drifters who fight and argue every night, by the loss of his beloved wife (The Grey was filmed shortly after Neeson's wife Natasha Richardson died, and his grief feels heavy and real), and by the job. We see him killing a wolf, then placing his hand on the carcass in respect, like one of Hemingway's big-game hunters or brave matadors. "I've stopped doing this world any good," John says in voice-over, a man faced with a meaningless world and, what's more, a snowy one.
The mood doesn't lighten much the next day, when the gang gets on a plane that crashes in the middle of nowhere, or, to be more accurate, Wolftown. Director Joe Carnahan, previously known for such explosive fantasies as The A-Team, mutes the excitement into a shaky, ashen realism, so that when John awakens in a fierce snowstorm, we feel like we're in the cold landscape of men's lost souls. But, like, with wolves.
There are a few other survivors, including helpful Henrick (Dallas Roberts), amiable Talget (Dermot Mulroney), big Burke (Nonso Anozie), and angry Diaz (Frank Grillo). We get to know them a bit, mostly in their reaction to the invading pack: growling, several sets of eyes in the darkness, a darting shape across a man's neck and a corpse that's been ripped apart. Character is important, but the wolves are like an attack of bad luck.
John leads the men away into the relative safety of a nearby forest, but the safety turns out to be even more relative than the tattered morality of the survivors. They light fires to keep the animals at bay, and talk about favourite memories: It's a technique John has used earlier to ease a man into death, and The Grey takes on an air of inevitability. It looks as if everyone is going to die, and we're going to watch how well -- bravely or in fear, quietly or in violence -- they do it.
It's a stark tale, and screenwriters Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (who wrote the short story on which it's based) give it time to get there. John, for instance, is all grievance and bluff until the wolves become a constant presence, and the movie lets us watch his personality flatten into a run from fate. Neeson is a commanding actor, but we see even John losing hope.
The Grey -- a name for the spiritual landscape, as well as the physical one -- trips up mostly when Carnahan lets the talk go on too long, or allows flashbacks to happier, more brightly lit times soften the characters. This is a movie about men, for good or ill, and it's cleaner when women are only a memory or a yearning, rather than a physical presence.
Near the end, one of the survivors calls out to the heavens for the Lord to take a hand. The sky remains clear; the silence is eloquent. "F--- it," the man says. "I'll do it myself." Whether he does is another question, because The Grey ends in chilly ambiguity. It's a philosophical conundrum with bared teeth.
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