Upon seeing the trailers for The Grey, I immediately classified it as the latest seemingly annual January/February Liam Neeson revenge/renegade thriller. Not that that would necessarily have been a bad thing, but right from the start, The Grey establishes itself as something much more than simple revenge thriller.
With The Grey, writer/director Joe Carnahan leaves behind his recent sloppy action spectacles, the abysmal Smokin' Aces, and what can only be described as an exercise in cinematic sadism, which he dared to call A-Team, and gets back to what made him worth paying attention to in the first place: gritty, tension-fueled, character-based thriller. The Grey follows a group of outcasts, formerly working in the arctic, as they try to stave off freezing, hunger, broken spirits, and a pack of giant, man-eating wolves after their plane goes down in the middle of nowhere with no hope of rescue.
Neeson leads an amazing cast of character actors as a broken man who was hired to pick off wolves with a sniper rifle. In another film, or perhaps with another actor, this would seem like a cheap character, more of a plot device than a fleshed-out human, but Carnahan and a very grizzled Neeson go to great lengths to make him not only believable, but complex and sympathetic as well. And for good reason too, for the film really comes down to him, in more ways than one, and caring about his many struggles is made as much a priority as providing entertainment via slick wolf attacks.
Now that's not to imply that the wolves are handled lightly. They're surprisingly impressive to look at, given that they're not real. Through a combination of CGI and animatronics, Carnahan gives us just enough visually to fear these vicious creatures, but relies more on shadows and sound effects to really instill dread in the audience. Though even more surprising, and more impressive, too, is Carnahan's reserve in exploiting this technical achievement and making a standard survival thriller about man vs. beast. Instead he delivers a much more contemplative film that ultimately establishes itself as a sort of meditation on death and an attempt to redefine Hollywood braun and manliness. Gone, I hope, are the days when dudes shrug off any hardship and sorrow, because in all honesty, The Grey proves that tears and fears are not only much more manly, but also much more interesting.
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