Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Liam Neeson and Nonso Anozie in a scene from "The Grey."
After the massive popularity of 2008’s “Taken,” arguably the ass-kicking-est family film ever made, Liam Neeson became male virility’s senior spokesman, a role that he’s settled into with the ease of a Sunday afternoon. As long as Neeson walks straight and maintains that firm handshake of an Irish brogue, I have no problem with that designation. He just has to avoid projects that allow lazy filmmakers to exploit his manly man reputation. Otherwise the “newest Liam Neeson flick” will become a keyword for unoriginality in a genre like “the new Julia Roberts movie.”
Neeson avoids that fate (for now, at least) with “The Grey,” where his stoic machismo serves as a perfect garnish in director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s entertaining, pulsating adventure tale. The star portrays Ottway, a tortured, moody loner with “a job at the end of the world” — picking off predators with a rifle on snowy, remote oil drilling sites — working with “men unfit for mankind.”
It’s safe to say that Ottway, who writes to a wife he cannot get back, includes himself in that description. “I’ve stopped doing this world any real good,” he tells us, before putting the rifle in his mouth.
Ottway, clearly one Sarah McLachlan song from ending it all, and his ragtag colleagues board a plane that never makes its final destination. Instead, it crashes in the snowy Alaskan unknown, leaving seven mobile survivors with limited provisions and no chance of being found. If that doesn’t qualify as a no-win situation, there’s this: The men’s unscheduled stop is home to a pack of vicious wolves that doesn’t appreciate outsiders. Ottway — whose job requires that he knows the animal’s habits — quickly becomes the bickering group’s leader. His shaky plan is to have them trek to the distant forest before the wolves feast on their flesh for breakfast.
Carnahan’s approach, appropriately gritty and jumpy, keeps “The Grey” immune from our skepticism — it fits the adrenaline-fueled “hunter vs. hunted” storyline. The director doesn’t tip his pitches; the shots are framed so that we don’t predict the wolves’ attacks. Because it’s well made, we allow ourselves to succumb to “The Grey’s” escapist pull. Plus, there’s plenty of foreplay before the wolf-on-man action.
As the workers continue their weary shuffle across the frozen terrain, we get to know them: Diaz (Frank Grillo), the scared rebel, Talget (professional handsome man Dermot Mulroney), the bespectacled, reasonable elder and Hendrick (Dallas Roberts), the sensitive, perceptive baby face.
The character development is a good idea that turns bad. Carnahan goes so far in humanizing Ottway and his scruffy companions that the pace lags. At some point, nearly everyone starts emoting like they’re chatting in Oprah’s living room. Ottway has soft-focus flashbacks involving his wife and father that recall his sensitive side, a move that will appease the girlfriends and wives who didn’t get to choose this week’s date-night movie.
“The Grey” would have packed a bigger punch if it hadn’t spelled out its emotional agenda and simply let the horror unfold. Neeson, Carnahan and company still give us a good jolt. That’s more than enough, and in the most barren period of the movie year, that makes “The Grey” a godsend.
Rating: W W W
Read more of Pete's cinematic musings on whatpeteswatching.blogspot.com or follow @PeteCroatto.
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