The Grey (2012)

Everything about the Grey told me to stay away. The trailer which had Liam Neeson organising a battle against wolves, the poster where Liam Neeson looked ragged and tough in icy conditions and the name, which means very little at all. You see a funny thing has happened since Taken was released in 2008; Liam Neeson has become an action star. Taken itself wasn't amazing film making, but it was damn good fun, and had a great trailer which is probably the reason it did as well as it did. Following that we had the pretty dull Unknown, and The A-Team, and now The Grey. However, the reviews for The Grey seemed unusually strong, and not just from Nuts and Loaded and other traditionally unreliable sources. So I threw caution to the wind and decided to go for it.

The Grey turned out to be quite an interesting film. Rather than opening with some bombastic scene of carnage or macho antics Liam Neeson is instead seen writing a letter to a lost loved one, and then going out the back of a bar and putting his rifle into his mouth. As you can imagine he doesn't actually go through with the act as, well it would make for a damn short film. Instead he is distracted by the sound of an approaching wolf, and his instincts kick in and instead of shooting himself, he goes for the wolf. Then on a journey home, his plane hits a storm and goes down in the middle of a snowy plane, and with the sound of wolf cries in the distance, Neeson and the other survivors of the crash (all of whom worked with him) must try and find a way to civilisation and away from the attack of the wolves.

Now, without giving too much away, it's safe to say that there are injuries along the way, that the group bond together, and overcome some pretty extreme odds to aid their chances of survival. Whilst most of this sounds like pretty inane, generic stuff. The film does all of this with a strong cast of relatively unknown players, who work very well as a group. It also does very well with a limited budget, with some wonderful shots of the wilderness which really seem like the middle of nowhere. There are greater themes too, such as loss, alienation, what makes someone tough or brave, and dealing with our own mortality. Liam Neeson's character begins the film with an apparent eagerness to leave this world, but when push comes to shove he chooses to fight till the bitter end for his own survival.

It's got flaws sure, but with some lovely wilderness shots, and a few layers of meaning to work through, The Grey is a film that is done no justice by the ad campaign which capitalises on Neeson's action man status. This is a shame because this film should be more than simply the film where a man punches a wolf in the face, it's a god example of an independent film fighting with the big boys and ultimately giving us a much more rewarding experience as a result.