The Grey (2012)

Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Written by: Joe Carnahan, Ian McKenzie Jeffers
Cast: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, Dallas Roberts, Ben Bray

An Alaskan crew of working men is flying back to Anchorage from their worksite when the unthinkable happens — their small aircraft breaks down and crashes into the frozen and blizzard-torn wilderness.

Among the small handful of survivors is Ottway (Liam Neeson), a freelance sniper originally hired to protect the men from aggressive wildlife. Ottway immediately provides some semblance of order for the survivors. The men are understandably in a deep state of shock and chaos rules immediately after the crash. Ottway has survivalist skills, and he puts them to use in organizing the men, gathering food and starting a fire to help fend off the deep cold.

Unfortunately for the men, they are not the only things alive in this frozen terrain. A large pack of aggressive wolves begins lurking the perimeter, and their surveillance grows into violent and savage attacks. Ottway's sniper rifle was smashed in the crash, and the men are without protection beyond anything they might craft from the wreckage.

Ottway soon makes a controversial decision — the men must leave the site of the crash. The plane affords no real protection from the wolves. He calls on the men to follow him to a distant forest in order to try to find some real cover and protection. The men are not united. In particular, there is John Diaz (Frank Grillo), a hard-drinking, wise-cracking malcontent who is definitely not afraid to share his poor opinion of Ottway. Regardless, Ottway gets his way, and the men begin trudging slowly through the snow, heading for the trees.

What follows is a long and brutal quest for survival. The men must fend off the pack of wolves that haunts their heels, as well as survive the wilderness itself. The frozen land they are in is not accommodating to the human form, and making a mistake may lead to a gruesome death.

Given the harsh environment, the prospect of death takes on a grim and real reality for all of the men. Interesting, this is what The Grey is ultimately all about. The story has a pulp attitude on its surface, with its brutal tale of men struggling to survive killer wolves out in the frozen lands of the north, but it is really about the very personal notion of dealing with your own death that lays at its heart. Not other people's death — your own.

One thing that entirely works for The Grey is Ottway's embittered warrior's attitude. The man does have a strong death wish, and the reason behind this is revealed late in the film. He wants to die. However, it is in his very nature to fight. He must fight, is driven to fight and simply can't give up when there is even a glimmer of hope of surviving, even though, deep inside, he quietly wants nothing more than to face death's gloom. This need to fight is brilliantly captured in some insight in the man's past, most notably the relations between him and his father. Ottway's father was a rough working and drinking Irishmen who had a soft spot for poetry and had written one simple four-line poem himself. This evocative little verse captures the spirit of The Grey entirely. I am not one for poetry, as so much of it is "art for art's sake," but this little poem left the theater with me.

His inner acceptance at the inevitable nature of death lends the film some of its most moving and powerful moments. Early in the film, after the plane crash, Ottway tries to help a man who is gravely wounded. He realizes that the struggle is moot; the man is going to die, and there is nothing for it. He tells the man as much, directly and without flinching, and slowly, gently talks the man into death. It's a strange scene that evokes the fear that all of us must face at the end of our lives. We see the wounded man's denial that he is dying, and then the slow acceptance, then relaxation, and then the end, all led by the gentle speech of the grim Ottway.

This strong subtext pervades the rest of the film, as the surviving men each face the growing possibility of their own deaths. Through the terror and struggles of these men, The Grey attempts to show us what it is to die, and it accomplishes this feat in a manner that is powerful, moving and intelligent.

That is not to say that the entire film carries such a somber tone. The action and tension throughout The Grey often surges to great strengths. A wonderful moment is the plane crash itself, which is likely one of the most realistic plane crashes I have ever seen captured in film. It is a terrifying moment that conveys the ultimate terror of a plane tearing itself apart in mid-air. Crashes do not happen instantly. It can take several minutes for a plane to tear itself apart, and a minute or more for it to finally hit the ground. This is detailed in a horrifying sequence that will leave anyone with a pulse gripping their seat.

The dread carries onward with the relentless attacks of the wolves. The pack is shown as organized, intelligent and very aggressive. These aren't stupid animals that attack at random. They utilize strategies, patterns and are quite motivated to kill all of the men, who are seen by the pack as intruders. They are right of course — the men are technically intruders — but what the wolves don't know is that the men would love nothing more than to get out of their territory.

The presentation of the wolves brings another interesting subtext, and that is the parallels between the wolves and the men themselves. Pay attention and you'll sometimes catch little mirrored events between the actions of the wolves and the men struggling to survive. There is one moment, for example, where the men hear the wolves break into a fight as the alpha wolf is challenged for its authority. This is mere moments from an altercation between the men who should be in charge. These little moments seem to show that the struggle of the wolves may not be all that different from the struggle of the men; it's all a matter of perspective.

The Grey is an excellent film, but it does stumble on some very mild points. It is an easy thing to pick on CGI, and it is easy to do so here. Many of the wolves are played by real-world wolf "actors," but sometimes the film employs CGI for its particularly menacing scenes. This does occasionally result in a vaguely cartoonish look that can throw a viewer out of the film. Interesting, though, there is at least one scene in which the CGI actually works to the film's benefit. Soon after the crash, the alpha wolf — a huge, hulking beast — steps out of the shadows to directly challenge the men at their campfire. As he snarls, glowing eyes melt out of the darkness behind him, showing the alpha is far from alone. This scene is quite obviously CGI, yet is strangely nightmarish in this false pretense to the point that it works. It's chilling and creepy, and it is creepy in part because it does not look real.

The Grey is an instant classic among the fairly obscure "when animals attack" sub-genre, but it is a film that offers much more than a simple tale of man versus beast. This is a smart film that seeks to gaze into the beyond and around the bend, even as the wolves bite at its heels. There is no better way to close this than with Ottway's poem. Go see this film.

Rating: (4.5 out of 5):