Arts & Entertainment

'The Grey' Is Gritty, Good, and Packs a Big Bite

A group of men stranded in the wilderness get hunted down by a pack of wolves. It's primal, it's primitive…it's Grey.


Liam Neeson and a bunch of roughneck oil riggers go down in a plane
crash in the frozen Alaska wilderness in "The Grey."

Neeson plays John Ottway, a loner and the alpha dog, of sorts, among
the surviving men of the crash. They are forced to stay together to
battle the elements and a pack of wolves, set on making them the next
meal. A supporting cast includes Dallas Roberts as the smart sensitive
guy, Dermot Mulroney as the sad dad missing his kid, and Frank Grillo
as the Latino hothead. They face frostbite, wolf bite, drowning, and
falling from great heights. Harsh outcomes for both man and beast.

In the middle of this life and death situation there's time for
conversation among the men. We get to know their back story and learn
that they are not simply a group of victims. Neeson's Ottway character
is of course the most complex. On the brink of suicide just before the
crash he now clings fiercely to it.

"The Grey" is a delightful surprise. Director Joe Carnahan does a good
job of not tipping his hand about who's living and who's dying. The
wolves were, at times, a bit over the top with the computer-generated
imagery look, but, overall not a bad film.

So the flick-o-meter gives "The Grey" three out of five.

It's a decent adventure tale. It seemed to me to be a bit too
digitally enhanced. A CGI snowstorm is OK, but giant hulking CGI
wolves? Not so much.

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