'Grey' Dominates as Gritty, Action Loaded Alpha

Jedi Master, Greek god, Gotham rogue - Liam Neeson always ends up with the most manly roles. 

The trailer for The Grey presented audiences with a captivating yet ambiguous account of Liam Neeson pitted against a pack of hungry wolves. But despite what appeared to be a straightforward premise; there always seemed to be something lurking in the background, a plot twist that we just couldn’t converge our attention on away from the overall theme of survival. Nothing of the sort exists and The Grey transcends that initial belief with a gritty metaphor about survival. 

The Grey trails the remaining members of an oil drilling team led by a take-charge hunter (Neeson), who survived a plane crash and trek across the remote Alaskan wilderness. Before these men can reach safety, they are pursued by a pack of territorial wolves and battle the brutality of life-threatening weather conditions. The Grey is directed by Joe Carnahan (Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane, Narc, The A-Team), who has a tendency to not hold back in any of his previous films and this is no exception to that rule.

From the start, The Grey exhibits traits of grittiness and animalistic behavior with its dire gear-turning predicament that Neeson and crew find themselves in. The plane crash is a brutal catalyst that sets up the entire journey through the wilderness for the next two hours, but also defines Ottaway (Neeson) as a resourceful, rough around the edges, take charge kind of guy. The others aren’t prepared for what is about to transpire. Ottaway has the upper hand, which will set him as not only a survivor, but the leader of the group. Neeson goes beyond what is necessary to make his character tick with a performance defining intensity and instinct. 

The remainder of the surviving company are not as emotionally invested or fleshed out until facing the eyes of death. Of course, Carnahan injects one particular character into the group that audiences will the hate. His macho façade, consistent vulgar intonations and blatant idiotic behavior make him the one guy you want to get ripped to shreds by wolves.

The Grey should have been a cliché testosterone driven thriller, where all that nudges an audience’s interest is the numbers dwindling down in vicious yet campy attacks and confrontational action-induced showdowns between man and beast. Fortunately, The Grey rises beyond that cliché, taking audiences on an integrated journey through the wild that emerges as more accurate than not. The wolves act as a threat, yet still distant enough to be considered a pack of shadows. The instances when they are provoked and as a result attack sometimes translate into unintentional humor. That is also dependent on the character in which is being attacked as some are more intense and illustrate genuine moments of shock. Of course when Neeson goes head to head with a pack of wolves, with his fists taped up with broken beer bottles, you know something awesome is going down.

Carnahan really gives the impression that The Grey was shot by two different individuals with two contrasting views of cinematography. In the first half of The Grey, the shots are constantly shaky to the point where it infuriates what might have been a thrilling experience. Shaky cam is acceptable in moderation, but it crosses the line when shot after shot is relentless with shakiness. This is not some found footage film, where that type of filmmaking can easily be dismissed based solely upon the genre.  The shaky cam eases off in the latter half of the film with more steady shots, but still states through such partitioned cinematography that there was either indecisiveness going on during filming or the filmmakers were simply bored of shooting shaky cam style. The combinations of these two styles do contribute to film’s intensity as even as night scenes around the campfire hold equal weight as their action-driven counterparts. 

The violence and the gore aren’t overloaded, though there are some memorable images of the survivors being taken down one by one in traditional fashion. Even as the violence is moderated, the vulgarity has no filter with f-bombs being dropped second after second.  Now I don’t have any sort of problem with profanity in a film, but The Grey transforms it into an expectation that loses its overall power.

Generated by a conventional paradigm of characters being taken out one by one, The Grey remains intense in demonstrating the qualities of survival and transcends simplicity with a metaphor of animalistic instinct. That combined with another fine performance by Liam Neeson sets The Grey as one of the first must-see films of 2012.

GRADE: B+ (8/10)
This review is also available on Blu-Ray.com