The Grey, directed by Joe Carnahan, follows a group oil workers in Alaska. Ottway (Neeson) is a skilled huntsman hired to protect the oil workers from the wild beasts that roam the forests. During a flight home with his boozy companions, Ottway trys to get some sleep, but he is awakened to an engine failure and straps himself tight to his seat before everything goes black and he wakes to a face full of snow in the middle of nowhere. After the crash in the Alaskan tundra, Ottway is faced with the task of leading the survivors to safety. However the harsh conditions are not the only enemy. as a pack of wolves preys on the small group.
Liam Neeson is a wolf tracker with a sad past and this is certainly a role which he has become accustomed to playing. However despite his troubled history he still manages to maintain just the right amount of adrenaline filled ass-kicking and omniscience needed for survival in the wild. However, Dermot Mulroney and Frank Grillo don’t get left in Neeson’s shadow, providing thoroughly entertaining and believable performances.
Joe Carnahan does seem to have stepped in and filled in some gaps in various places as it is only based on a short story by Ian Mckenzie Jeffers (although Carnahan did employ the services of Jeffers for the screenplay). Regrettably, as the story gets underway you begin to feel it’s a rather predictable horror story/thriller as the small band of survivors begin to be picked off one by one by the pack of man eating wolves.
Despite this initial shortcoming you do start to engage with the plot and characters, their fear and despair is amply balanced with the surprise wolf attacks. There is one spectacular scene in particular where the wolves eyes appear glowing in the darkness. You start to empathise with Neeson as he is unable to save many of his companions and begin to question whether even this most rugged on men will be able to survive himself.
Regardless of the pain depicted throughout the film, the last few scenes do leave you feeling invigorated. My initial reaction was to feel a slight sense of disappointment as the ending scene (without giving too much away) could certainly be characterised as a cliff hanger. However the more I have thought about the choice of ending and how it was presented, the more I feel that the outcome isn’t important and that leaving the rest of the story to the imagination of the audience is a much better way of culminating this particular film.
Overall Verdict: Although verging on the predictable from time to time, a thoroughly entertaining thriller and a great short story. This is definitely one for any Liam Neeson fans.
Reviewer: George Mowles-Van Der Gaag