Review of The Grey (2012) by Reuben M — 23 Mar 2013

THE GREY is an okay movie. If I tell you the basic story, you'll think it's just a typical pulp action film...but the quality of cinematography, sound, script and acting elevates it to something a bit loftier. As I watched it, I appreciated the effort the filmmakers were putting into this. An element of existentialism that you can actually feel on an emotional level.

Yet at the same time, the film has people doing some incredibly stupid things, akin to what teenagers in slasher flicks might do. Couching unexplainable behavior within an "artsy" framework doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

Liam Neeson is introduced working at a far northern Alaska installation. His job is as a sniper of wolves, keeping the compound safe from these dangerous predators. He's also contemplating suicide, but holds off at the last moment. Thus, he ends up on an ill-fated flight from the installation. The plane goes down in the middle of nowhere, leaving about seven survivors amidst the wreckage. It is during these post-crash scenes that we truly get to see what a natural, physical leader Neeson's character is. He barks orders that quickly organize the survivors and he sternly but gently attends the dying moments of a passenger as he bleeds out. The death is looked upon in a series of powerful close-ups...and the stage is set that this isn't merely a movie in which a death is simple and unemotional. The scene has power, and it also serves as the moment when the other survivors (for the most part) embrace the notion that Neeson is going to be their leader.

Soon, they discover that their wrecked fuselage is being stalked by man-eating wolves. So Neeson decides that instead of waiting for possible but unlikely rescue in the plane and facing the wolves there, he suggests they grab what supplies they can and head for a tree line off in the distance, because he thinks the wolves MIGHT leave them alone if they think the men are leaving their territory. This is a central decision, because most of the film follows thereafter...and yet it is not for ONE SECOND convincing. It is stupid on the face of it. Yes, wolves are stalking them...but they are in a location which provides some shelter from the HARSH wintry conditions, they have food and luggage to rummage through (which they never thoroughly do...who's to say someone wasn't carrying a satellite phone in their bag?) and it seems unlikely the wolves would swarm en masse into a giant steel structure. And wouldn't large, ragged pieces of steel make excellent weapons against the wolves? Instead, the men set out on foot in the hopes the wolves will leave them alone. To say they made the wrong choice is understating matters (this is hardly a spoiler...it's what the film is ABOUT). In my mind, Neeson is instantly established as a charismatic, tough-talking, tough-minded, physically adept FOOL.

Once they have made this choice, what follows are a series of man vs. man & man vs. nature encounters. The characters are all nicely sketched, and some, such as the ex-con presented by Frank Grillo, are actually very well-rounded. The men bond. They fight. They endure. They make ever more desperate choices. And the movie actually asks some big questions about death and facing death. The manner in which we chose to go out...when given a choice. As I said, it's more existential than you might expect. There is less action and more contemplation that some viewers probably expect. It's refreshing that the film would take the time to explore some of the moral quandaries it does. And it ends more logically than I would have expected, given some of the dumb choices from earlier in the film.

I got past the terrible decision making early in the film, because I appreciated the excellent technical filmmaking throughout. Director Joe Carnahan has given us a mean, unforgiving film...not a soft adventure where you can predict 10 minutes into it who will live and who will die.

But even with all the good things I just said, THE GREY is lacking. Just little things. The weather is incredibly cold, yet frostbite and exposed faces is a non-issue. A wolf viciously attacks one man, yet when the wolf is fought off, the man has virtually no injuries...yet in an earlier, similar scene, the victim is torn apart. There are just enough annoying inconsistencies, coupled with the one really bad initial decision to have pulled me out of really committing to this film. It's ultimately a three-star, just barely recommend for me.