I went into The Grey expecting to see Liam Neeson play a tough dude fighting for his life against a pack of angry wolves. That’s what the marketing promised and the film delivered on that and then some, as it’s one of the most intense movies I have ever seen.
Neeson plays Ottway, a hired gun on an oil drilling team in Alaska. His job is to watch for, and take out, any animals (mostly wolves) that get too close to the grunts and engineers working the machinery. He’s a loner and spends more time thinking about his late wife than he does hanging out with his co-workers.
On their way back home for a break, the plane the team is on crashes in the middle of nowhere and only a few survive, Ottway included. The survivors soon learn they are not alone in the snowy tundra and are now up against enormous, hungry wolves with nothing more than sticks to fight with. Ottway tries to educate the other men in order for them to make it out alive, but as the wolves start picking them off and the weather turns nasty, surviving the plane crash appears to be the worst thing that could have happened to them.
While there are many scenes in The Grey that had my heart pounding and left a haunting impression on me, the most vivid one was the plane crash scene, which actually made my palms sweat. The way the scene is edited and the way it uses sound and close-ups to intensify the destruction and fear of what’s happening is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on screen before and it blew my mind.
Plane crashes and wolves aside, this is a movie about survival first and the actors all do a great job making you believe they are stranded and doomed, especially Neeson who delivers one of the best performances of his career. I was so completely immersed in watching them struggle that I never once thought there was a camera crew just out of frame.
Director Joe Carnahan deserves a lot of credit for pulling this off. Unlike his previous films, which include The A-Team, Smokin’ Aces, and Narc, he actually seems to care about The Grey and has not only proven he’s a worthy filmmaker, but has made a masterpiece that will send chills down your spine and keep you up at night.
The Grey opens everywhere January 27.
Rating: 
Rated 14A
Cast: Liam Neeson, Dallas Roberts, Frank Grillo
Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Top image: A scene from The Grey. Courtesy eOne Films.
