Animal inside
Liam Neeson vs. the wolves and his own demons
Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated R.
There’s a pulp sensibility running through Joe Carnahan’s The Grey that evokes the man vs. nature adventure stories from the ‘30s that were packaged between the lurid covers of men’s magazines, refined with a touch of Jack London’s eye for the desolate wilderness that served as a backdrop for his early Alaska tales. And that is good.
However, if one goes into The Grey expecting to see Liam Neeson unleash all sorts of badassery on the timber wolves at hand, one might be disappointed. The Grey is heavy on the existentialism, light on the badassery, as Neeson and his erstwhile posse of survivors summon everything they can just to stay ahead of the snapping white fangs.
What’s happened is, a bunch of roughnecks head out of a remote Alaskan drilling site on their way home to collect their paychecks when their transport plane scatters itself and them across the remote tundra. With no rescue team expected and a pack of territorial wolves just slaverin’ for some easy meat, the handful of survivors bundle up and try to make it to the supposed safety of the woods. Why? Maybe it was one of those “Seemed like a good idea at the time” things. It probably sounded sensible coming from Neeson’s character. He’s the only one of the bunch who seems to have the skill set to help them evade becoming wolf poop. While the rest of the survivors have the mean-street cred to be able to handle their differences mano-a-mano, they’re a little out of their element when it comes to facing down the call of the wild.
At first there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on with The Grey, which is essentially a point-A-to-point-B story (a werewolf movie without the were). But Carnahan (Narc) displays an evocative feel for old-fashioned story-telling, and a nuanced sense of dark irony. And while he follows the template of body-count horror, he also takes the time to define the characters beyond the expected caricatures and tweak the narrative tropes we’ve come to expect from a Hollywood thriller with a subtle hand, letting one appreciate the ironies without having them spoon fed.
