THE GREY (USA 2011) **
Directed by Joe Carnahan

THE GREY is writer/director Joe Carnahan (SMOKING ACES) dream project.  Having fallen in love with the story, Carnahan develops and finally completes THE GREY after a period of 6 years. 

The story concerns a disturbed oil worker, Ottway (Liam Neeson) working in Alaska.  The audience is told via voiceover and by a silly local pub fight scene that Alaska contains the rejects of human beings, primarily those of bad character.  When Ottway’s plane crashes into the ice and snow, he and seven plane survivors must escape a pack of preying wolves.

There are two distinct parts to Carnahan’s film.  One, the more successful is the action element involving the fight between man and wolves, both physically and mentally.  The other, and less successful in terms of execution, is the drama among the men and their psychological drama.  Carnahan appears to be trying to hard in this department, failing quite embarrassingly.

As far as the film’s action sequences go, audiences should be satisfied.  The plane crash is one of the most exciting put on screen, making the bomb explosion in the famous AIRPORT film look amateurish.  The animal attack scenes are also well done, though one could do away with the CGI effects.  The shiny white teeth of the wolves look exactly like the teeth of the invading creatures in ATTACK THE BLOCK.  The other suspense segments like the jump from one cliff to the other and the swept through the rapids are impressive edge-of-the seat excitement.

However, Ottway’s placing the barrel of the gun to his mouth in a suicide attempt, only to be saved by the howling of a wolf seems over the top.  Two other scenes do not cut it.  One is Ottway challenging God and the other has ex-con John Diaz (Frank Grillo) sitting with his back to the camera waiting to die.  The script also contains too much philosophizing about death.

Neeson is not too bad playing Ottway given the limitations of the script and the fact that his character never develops past the point of ‘ok, I am not going to shoot myself anymore.’ The supporting cast are all right, but forgettable at best.

Ottway, who emerges as the survivors’ leader knows everything about wolves.  He advises them of their habits, their hunting instincts and behaviour.  But according to fact, wolves very seldom attack human beings in real life, though they are isolated cases. 

THE GREY finally emerges as a miscalculated under achievement of a well intentioned project.  But the exceptionally shot action segments should be worth the cost of the ticket.