Tags:
Film: The Grey
Year: 2011
Director: Joe Carnahan
Writer: Joe Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers
Starring: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney and Frank Grillo
Review:
This film begins in a camp in Alaska. All the men work there and they have a wolf hunter who is played by Liam Neeson. We get a scene of him in the bar there, we also learn later that those around him at the bar are the same people who are on the plane. We get a weird scene where Neeson tries to kill himself, but doesn’t go through with it.
We then cut to the men being on a small airplane back to civilization. The flight is bumpy from the beginning and then it crashes. The men are out in the frozen tundra. A few survive and others are wounded. They do the best they can to try and save these men, but in the end they can’t do much.
Soon after they are attacked by wolves, Neeson explains to the men about wolves being territorial by nature and that they are invading their space. One man in particular is against Neeson from the beginning, he is played by Frank Grillo. A couple of the men are attacked by these giant wolves.
Neeson decides their best course of action would be to move away from the crash sight toward a tree-line. Grillo is against this thinking the plane crash will draw a rescue party. Neeson wants to get away from the un-defendable position.
Can the men fight off these beasts as they try to get rescued? Can they survive the insurmountable odds they are faced with?
I really liked this movie. You have man vs. the weather and Mother Nature, plus you have man vs. the beasts, but you also get man vs. himself. Each man finds a reason to survive, but you also get someone who gives up on life, because they don’t feel the fight they are putting up is worth the life they have. Really makes you think about your own life and if it would be worth it.
The acting is great and the wolf scenes are top notch. It is spooky hearing them move around outside the light of the fire, hearing them howl at the moon and they seemingly come out of nowhere to attack, which makes them that much scarier.
With that being said, I am adding this film to the horror film research for multiple reasons. The first one being that it would be scary to be in a plane crash, but it would be even worse to be out in the middle of nowhere. They have crashed in the middle of nowhere and it is freezing outside. They do not have a lot of food, water or supplies, so they are up against that. Make it even worse though, they are being hunted by wolves who are trying to kill them for being in their territory. This makes for a very scary situation to be in.
I would recommend this film. The action scenes are short, but the suspense the wolves create make up for that. The dilemma this film puts out are tough to overcome and does give a bit of inspiration, but it also is demoralizing to see what these men go through. Definitely worth watching, if you want a psychological, survival film.
My Rating: 8 out of 10