What could have been a Jack London tale, delves into the existence of God.
Liam Neeson in a scene from "The Grey."
"The Grey" TWO AND A HALF STARS
Rated R
Running time: 117 minutes
It’s a cramped, ugly, barebones flight, packed full of oil-rig workers. Then it hits a blizzard. Then it crashes, in the middle of an Alaskan wasteland even Todd Palin would steer clear of.
It can’t get worse, can it?
No, it can’t – until the half-dozen survivors look up and see a glittering circle of ember-red eyes, as a wolf pack watches and licks its lips and slowly moves forward.
This is the set up for “The Grey,” and if that’s all the movie was, it’d be great – a modern Jack London story of man against nature, armed only with those earliest of weapons, a bright fire and a sharp stick.
Unfortunately, filmmaker Joe Carnahan has bigger plans.
Carnahan first grabbed eyes 10 years ago with “Narc,” an action picture whose hysteria was frequently mistaken for style. Once he had people’s eyes, he doubled-down with the even more extreme “Smokin’ Aces” and “The A-Team,” abandoning any pretense to seriousness.
“The Grey” is, right from its moody title, an obvious attempt to address that. But sadly it has all of the pretense, and little of the seriousness.
Because somewhere along the line, apparently, it was decided that having men fighting for their lives is not enough to hang a movie on. It has to be a movie about Big Ideas. So there’s a lot of angry talk on the subject of “Why is God doing this to us?”
The fiercest invective comes from the two Catholic characters, interestingly enough. At one point, leader Liam Neeson even demands the Almighty come down and save him. He does not. This is seen as an important theological point, although it may merely mean that the Almighty is watching a better movie.
Of course, there are good and passionate arguments to be had about the possibility of the divine, but this is all on the level of a freshman’s fiction- assignment at a slightly liberal prep school – right down to a suicide scene and a final (and predictable) “revelation” of why Neeson has been so darn sad the whole time.
Neeson is, as always a formidable presence as a man who will not be stopped from reaching that goal (or grabbing that next paycheck, apparently).Frank Grillo has the flashiest part as an ex-con with “No mas” tattooed on his neck.
The rest of the cast, however, are mostly wolf chow, marked only by a few details – thick glasses, nice guy, black guy. And we all know where those facts place them on the hit list.
Carnahan stages some exciting action scenes, and there are a few striking images – like the pawprint of a predator, slowing filling with blood from the man he’s killed.
But the story both begs the suspension of our disbelief (it’s never quite clear why they decide to leave the wreck of the plane, which at least provides shelter and supplies) and prevents some unbelievable “facts” of its own about grey wolves, who are all vengeful maneaters and about the size of Taylor Lautner’s buddies in “Twilight.”
I don’t think the filmmakers care too much about giving the animal a bad rap, though. In fact, according to one report, during production they deliberately killed and carved up four wolves, using two for “props.” The other two they cooked and ate, to get in the mood.
I hope they found it as hard to swallow as their movie.