The Grey Review

Live and die on this day. 
Full review by Isaac Handelman

As soon as The Grey ended, I let out a long sigh. But then I realized it wasn’t a sigh. It was a gasp for air, as I had apparently not been breathing normally throughout the large majority of the film. Writer/director Joe Carnahan is known for big-budget, ridiculous action movies like Shoot ‘Em Up and The A-Team. The Grey is a huge departure from anything the director has done in the past. Startlingly intense, yet surprisingly simple, The Grey plays its hand with care. It’s got its flaws, but when a film manages to keep its viewers pasted to the edge of their seats for nearly two hours, it has to be doing something right.

Liam Neeson takes center stage as Ottway, and delivers a fantastic performance to boot. Though his character is never fleshed out or explained in full, what we do see of Ottway’s obviously troubled past lets us connect with the character without forcing the film to carry on a pointless side-plot. Ottway and his fellow workers find themselves victims of a horrific plane crash and stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, left to fend for themselves against the forces of nature and a pack of hostile wolves. 

Ottway’s character feels like a somewhat blank slate at the beginning of the film. We don’t know much about him, other than that he works in Alaska with a bunch of oil drillers, he has a past love who has somehow escaped him, and he has been pushed to the brink of suicide. By the end of the film, a few puzzle pieces are awarded to the viewer, but nothing that will truly define the character. By the end, it’s almost left up to the viewer to fill in the blanks.

The supporting cast feels well-rounded. Some of the characters feel a bit too much like caricatures (you’ve got the rough-and-tumble guy who’s not afraid of anything, the family man who misses his daughter, and the annoying but likable misfit among others), but their relatively shallow backgrounds are compensated for by great performances all around, as well as ensuring an obvious aforementioned focus on the main survival story at hand.

From the riveting plane-crash sequence that’s unlike anything I’ve seen before to the desperate struggle across a barren, snow-covered tundra and beyond, The Grey rarely lets up in suspense. The first half of the film feels a bit stronger than the second, due to its faster pace and the immediate shocks that come with being stranded in the middle of a terrifying nowhere, but that’s not to say that there’s a true lapse in breathtaking shocks at any given point in the film. As soon as one setting or interaction begins to sputter, we’re whisked off to another desperate struggle for survival. 

This (subtly) breakneck pace has its drawbacks. At times, The Grey feels a bit too much like a monster movie, as characters are picked off one at a time in increasingly gruesome ways that begin to feel a tad arbitrary next to the film’s gritty tone. This isn’t helped much by the CGI-wolves, whose bright demon eyes feel borderline silly at times. When these creatures attack is when The Grey shows everything it’s got. 

Yes, there’s plenty-a-jump-scare, but when the menace of the creatures truly shines is when we see their numbers, and begin to question whether the beasts actually represent something beyond savage animals. A reason, perhaps, for these fruitless survivors to continue on their forward trek. Their determined pursuit of the survivors may leave animal advocates unhappy, but the explanations for why the wolves posses such an avid obsession with killing works in the context of the film. Trust me, when you’re holding your breath in the endless suspense at hand, you won’t be thinking about The Grey’s scientific accuracy. 

I don’t want to spoil anything for fear of ruining The Grey’s shocking finale, but I will say this. Some will criticize Carnahan and his writing team for intentionally leaving us hanging on the edge, wanting more. Some will call it an unnecessarily brutal cliffhanger at the end of a brutal film about brutal survival. Sure, the writers may be guilty of some of these accusations. But I don’t care. The end of the film made my heart pound to an extent that few films have managed to achieve in recent memory. And upon that cut to black -- and the subsequent moans of the audience behind me -- Neeson’s brilliant delivery of the final lines crafted a truly mind-blowing conclusion. Looking back, it’s really the only plausible way the film could have ended, and if it makes you feel cheated, well, that’s just too bad.

The Grey isn’t the kind of movie that wants to answer all of your questions. It’s the kind that wants to make you ask more. While this is not the perfect formula, you’ll be hard-pressed to find more intense, edge-of-your-seat entertainment anywhere else, especially coupled with the considerable emotional poignancy that The Grey offers up.

Final Score:

7.5/10

“Very Good”