“The Grey”: So Much More Than Liam Neeson Brutalizing Wolves

Liam Neeson being Liam Neeson.Photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/OpenRoadFilms">Open Road Films</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Grey

Open Road Films

117 minutes

There’s no easier way to get a movie made in Hollywood than to walk into a room full of studio executives and say these 16 magic words: “Two straight hours of Liam Neeson fighting wild animals to the death with his bare hands.”

And if you’ve seen any of the trailers for The Grey, chances are good that’s exactly what you thought the movie was going to be about. The plot is refreshingly without frills: Neeson stars as Ottway, a brooding, poetry-quoting middle-aged man who works on an Alaskan oil rig. His profession? Killing wolves with his rifle all day—something he describes as a “job at the end of the world.” One day, a plane he’s riding on crashes into a pitiless Alaskan snowscape. Ottway and six other survivors are stranded and terrified, with only a handful of useful supplies. And you can bet all the money in your pockets that the local wolves—very pissed-off wolves—have zero intention of leaving them be.

Understandably, animal rights advocates aren’t too thrilled about this movie. Even though writer/director Joe Carnahan has repeatedly claimed that the film has an environmental message at its core, some animal rights and conservation groups are pushing for a boycott of the film.

“Carnahan’s irrational fear [of wolves] will further drive the 21st-century extermination campaign on wolves,” Wendy Keefover, carnivore protection director for WildEarth Guardians, told Mother Jones. “In the last few months alone, hundreds have been slaughtered in Idaho and Montana because of displaced fears by fanatics, who wrongly believe that wolves compete with or pose a threat to them…Just watching the trailer is too anxiety-producing for me. It’s so brutally wrongheaded.”


Yes, in real life, wolf-on-human violence in North America is rare, and fatalities even more so. (It’s important to keep in mind that everything you ever learned from the movies about allegedly blood-lusty animals is dead wrong.)

This is not, however, a good reason to declare the film a blood libel against wolves everywhere. After all, wanting to bask in the rejuvenating glow of watching the guy who killed and tortured degenerate foreigners in Taken battle a marauding gang of wolves isn’t an endorsement of wolf-hate any more than the first five minutes of The Matrix is an endorsement of cop-killing.

But here’s the thing about The Grey: There is so much more to this movie than rambunctious subzero wolf-punching. In spite of what the marketing campaign chose to reveal to you, most of the movie has nothing to do with the unapologetically cool Neeson going to town on some wolves. The film, based on a short story by screenwriter Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, makes liberal use of flashbacks and tundra symbolism to craft a vivid portrait of existential exhaustion, all of it framed by Masanobu Takayanagi‘s haunting photography.

Joe Carnahan—a seasoned practitioner of kinetic filmmaking whose past credits include The A-Team, the wickedly fun Smokin’ Aces, and the terrific Narc—directs with a characteristically steady hand, straddling the thick line between action-flick accessibility and taut art house cinema.

Liam Neeson continues to stake out his reputation as Hollywood’s elder statesman of class-A ass-whupping.

There are large chunks of running time where the stranded men simply sit and talk about their families and their regrets. The cast—offering up effective, raw performances from Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, and Dallas Roberts—emphasizes emotional and personal vulnerability over machismo. (The film’s bare-knuckled humanity has even earned comparisons to the works of Jack London!)

Now, lest you start thinking that The Grey is just Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants transposed to the frostbitten wilderness, let’s be clear about something: There is enough riveting action, brutal violence, and dark comic relief to satisfy moviegoers who are just looking for brainless entertainment. A guy who goes out for a midnight leak gets instantly disemboweled by the dogs. A beautifully staged set piece involving the last survivors jumping off a cliff, over a deep gorge, into a thick of gigantic trees is alone worth the cost of admission. When an omega wolf tries to ambush one of the men, he responds by knifing the animal roughly eight dozen times, decapitating the corpse, hurling the head in the direction of the pack, and bellowing, “You fuck with us, we fuck with you!”

Most importantly, there is absolutely no shortage of Liam Neeson being Liam Neeson. Working off his mid-career/mid-life reinvention as a top-billed action star, Neeson continues to stake out his reputation as Hollywood’s elder statesman of class-A ass-whupping. At one point, Ottway dives into a gelid river to rescue a distressed comrade like it ain’t no thing. In his trademark rasp, he politely informs a fellow oil rig worker that “I’m gonna start beating the shit out of you in about five seconds, and you’re gonna be swallowing a lot of blood.” When the huddled survivors are approached by a band of man-eating wolves, Ottway reassures his fellow humans with a persuasive “Be cool.”

Later on, he even takes a breather to look up at a pale blue sky and rail against God for being such a “fuckface.”

Beyond the one-liners, Neeson’s commitment to the demanding, rugged role readily shines through. (The man subjected himself to freezing showers for 10 minutes every morning during the shoot, which should give you an idea of how utterly worthless and frail you are when compared to Liam Neeson.)

The Grey is weighed down slightly by the kind of abrupt ending that leaves you wondering if the test screening devolved into an all-out riot. But long after the credits roll, the movie will have you recalling its subtleties and savoring its visceral kick.

The Grey gets a wide release on Friday January 27. Click here for local showtimes and tickets.

Click here for more movie features from Mother Jones.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate