Film Reviews

The Grey

• Rating:
• Director: Joe Carnahan
• Starring: Liam Neeson
• Details: US / 117mins (15A)

A survival thriller with genuine muscle, Liam Neeson's career continues down the manly man path, as he hands a pack of wolves their respective arses. There's more to The Grey than just a showdown between man and beast, though, and Neeson's A-Team director Joe Carnahan once again proves that he's more than capable of delivering gritty thrills after the brilliant (and hugely underrated) NARC a decade ago.
A plane of oil drillers goes down over a remote part of Alaska where a pack of aggressive wolves see them as intruders on their territory. They must fight them off, while trying to survive the harsh climate. Cue a showdown between Liam Neeson and a pack of the hairy bastards. At this point, Chuck Norris would be shitting himself if the man who was once Oskar Schindler walked into the room.
I did have visuals of teen girls entering this violent and somewhat coarse thriller expecting one of the wolves to eventually turn into Taylor Lautner, only to be then shocked when they started devouring people. That aside, The Grey is a tight, very efficient thriller that pushes Neeson's tough guy persona more than the likes of Taken or Unknown but sans the more cheesy elements of those somehat guilty pleasures. The difference here is Joe Carnahan, an extremely talented director who toyed with the Hollywood studio system but who's obviously more comfortable in edgier far such as this.
Shooting on location in a harsh looking British Columbia in Canada was a wise move - Cliffhanger this is not. There's an obvious air of realism that shooting on location gives and that's only enhanced by the visceral animal attacks. Carnahan knows visceral, and knows it well; a pack of wolves attacking injured oilman obviously lends itself well to that kind of tone and it's embraced well enough - and complimented by the presence of Neeson - here to worl extremely well as a crowd pleasing, but edgy effort.
Very enjoyable and well made thriller that will please fans of Neeson and offers a new lease of life for its talented director.

Review by Mike Sheridan