The Grey (2012)

One of the most annoying things about most movies is that they don’t take death seriously. Rare is the Hollywood film with a body count of zero, and in most cases when those deaths come we aren’t meant to be genuinely affected by them. They’re just an unimportant movie character, a nameless police officer, or a villain that we apparently want to see dead. When a movie comes along that treats the loss of a single human life like the tragedy that it is, it’s a refreshing break from the norm. The Grey is one such film; by all accounts a typical “man vs. nature” thriller that should really be nothing more than an excuse for Liam Neeson to punch some wolves for two hours. But this movie has more going on upstairs than you might think, and it winds up being one of the bleakest mainstream films to come out in quite some time. Everyone involved in The Grey could have phoned it in, but instead they’ve made an emotionally affecting and upsetting film that admittedly adheres to a formula, but it all leads up to a final 20 minutes that are pretty darn bold.

Neeson plays Ottway, a wolf sniper in Alaska who is in the middle of a deep depression. When he boards a plane to take him back to civilization, said plane crashes in the middle of frozen nowhere. Most of the plane’s passengers die on impact. The only ones left are Neeson and a select few others played by Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie and James Badge Dale. The situation is further complicated by the appearance of a pack of wolves that threaten to take down Neeson and his companions one-by-one. The plot advances as you’d expect, with the token “Jack from Lord of the Flies” character and the usual conversations about the family back home, but director Joe Carnahan and his cast are able to elevate the material into something more than a run-of-the-mill survival story.

The Grey hits hardest in the final act, when the general air of hopelessness grows almost unbearably thick. When the film is simply gliding—albeit gracefully—from cliché to cliché, it tricks you into thinking you know where it’s going. Then there are a few moments late when you realize just how committed the film is to its less-than-optimistic convictions, and that Carnahan doesn’t plan on coasting in for the easy landing. Too often in movies like this, rescue can come out of nowhere at the most convenient time. Just when you think that moment is about to come in The Grey, the audience is refused satisfaction. As a result, some typical audiences may be turned off by the ending. For me, it was the strongest, most thrilling part of the movie.

Carnahan’s assured direction surprised me, considering his experience is in broader fare such as Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team. Yet The Grey is a gritty, uncompromising film that never gets too caught up in the CGI wolves or possible cartoonishness. The story is frequently ridiculous, but the performances and the situations all ring true because they are played with precisely the right tone. A lesser film might have aestheticized everything in order to make a more accessible product. The Grey is bleak and ugly from start to finish, and it proves to be the perfect match for Neeson’s constantly scowling demeanor. His transformation into a late-career action star has been a pleasant surprise, and this film continues that without going into silly Taken/Unknown territory. It’s entertaining without devolving into full-on schlock.

There are many developments in The Grey you can see coming a mile away, and it still adheres to the logic that the guy on the poster should be the most invincible. Yet when I walked out of this film, I found myself surprisingly shaken. At its best, The Grey is an almost-Herzogian tale about a small group of men and their battle against nature. (If this were a true story, it wouldn’t surprise me if Herzog made the documentary.) There’s no real logic to the way some characters die, and in a couple cases their deaths are especially cruel. But you get the feeling that if this scenario were to really happen, that’s how people would die. Most go in the crash. Some go in the cold. Others go to the wolves. One by one the characters start to realize that even though they survived the crash, there still may be nothing that can save them. Certainly not the script.

Grade: B+