** moderate spoilers **
Liam Neeson is close to a Western star for recent decades, based on films not quite Westerns: Ethan Frome (1993), Rob Roy (1995), Gangs of New York (2002), Kingdom of Heaven (2005). The underrated Seraphim Falls (2006), also with Pierce Brosnan, might be Neeson's only literal visit to the genre. (He's also in the parody A Million Ways to Die in the West.)
In The Grey he's Ottway, salaried killer of wolves for an oil company in the Arctic. We'll learn he's lost his wife, which has made life an onerous duty. He describes the oil crew he's protecting: "ex-cons, fugitives, drifters, assholes" (compare Deadwood and The Hateful Eight). As in John Carpenter's The Thing, men are a dangerous subculture to be exiled at 30-below.
As a company plane takes off, the karma's bad, as in Alien. A nervous roughneck can't shut up, blurting the plane may crash: the trigger sin. It crashes. The good news: they have a wolf expert, as Ottway takes leadership of the dwindling group, informing them wolves have a 30-mile "kill radius." The bad news: they have no way of knowing where's the den.
The Grey is a neat trick, a hit film about death. While downbeat, it's an exciting, inventive thriller, with spectacular action as the men deal with wolves, weather, and unforgiving terrain. The wolves are CGI, and not fully believable, but as in Frozen (2010), they're mostly off-screen. The British Columbia locations are thrilling; evidently, the actors and crew endured bitter cold.
It's an open question what the title refers to: grey wolves, presumably (although these as often appear brown or black). The weather is grey. The characters face death, a grey zone shielding mystery. Finally, most of the men are white: if "grey," they're fading, becoming historical.
It's implied the plane crashes because delayed by workers acting up and complaining (a supervisor says "You guys are fucking this up"). Sometimes, we allow a narrative to say what's taboo, thus we've lately seen many film-narrative plane crashes, and many widowers: the dead (missing) wife (or child) represents a line ending. Unlike Stagecoach and The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Grey presents an afflicted band without women. Unlike The Searchers or Open Range, this alpha male isn't protecting a settlement: he fights for his own survival, because it's-what-you-do, even when there's nothing decent left to protect. Even when the wolf is at the door.
** dedicated to the memory of Roger Ebert, who praised The Grey 15 months before his passing in 2013 **
Liam Neeson is close to a Western star for recent decades, based on films not quite Westerns: Ethan Frome (1993), Rob Roy (1995), Gangs of New York (2002), Kingdom of Heaven (2005). The underrated Seraphim Falls (2006), also with Pierce Brosnan, might be Neeson's only literal visit to the genre. (He's also in the parody A Million Ways to Die in the West.)
As a company plane takes off, the karma's bad, as in Alien. A nervous roughneck can't shut up, blurting the plane may crash: the trigger sin. It crashes. The good news: they have a wolf expert, as Ottway takes leadership of the dwindling group, informing them wolves have a 30-mile "kill radius." The bad news: they have no way of knowing where's the den.
The Grey is a neat trick, a hit film about death. While downbeat, it's an exciting, inventive thriller, with spectacular action as the men deal with wolves, weather, and unforgiving terrain. The wolves are CGI, and not fully believable, but as in Frozen (2010), they're mostly off-screen. The British Columbia locations are thrilling; evidently, the actors and crew endured bitter cold.
It's an open question what the title refers to: grey wolves, presumably (although these as often appear brown or black). The weather is grey. The characters face death, a grey zone shielding mystery. Finally, most of the men are white: if "grey," they're fading, becoming historical.
It's implied the plane crashes because delayed by workers acting up and complaining (a supervisor says "You guys are fucking this up"). Sometimes, we allow a narrative to say what's taboo, thus we've lately seen many film-narrative plane crashes, and many widowers: the dead (missing) wife (or child) represents a line ending. Unlike Stagecoach and The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Grey presents an afflicted band without women. Unlike The Searchers or Open Range, this alpha male isn't protecting a settlement: he fights for his own survival, because it's-what-you-do, even when there's nothing decent left to protect. Even when the wolf is at the door.
** dedicated to the memory of Roger Ebert, who praised The Grey 15 months before his passing in 2013 **