“The Grey” with Liam Neeson won the weekend box office, and earned plaudits from all corners of the critical universe…but not from me.
What starts out as classy, enigmatic film ultimately ends in a formulaic, paint by numbers, trudge through frozen tundra and icy clichés.
Liam plays a mysterious semi-loner who works in a remote part of Alaska, guarding the perimeter of an energy plant from wolves. His lonely days and nights are spent longing for his girl back, somewhere, in the world. We don’t know why they aren’t together anymore, we only know that Liam is so miserable that he considers taking his life. At this point, we are intrigued, enthralled, and a bit puzzled. Soon, Liam and the other “losers and assholes” as he describes them in voice over, are on a plane bound for civilization—they’re leaving the remote plant for now and going home. Instead, the plane crashes in an extended scene for which director Joe Carnahan must be commended—the crash sequence is terrifying and realistic—and when the zillion pieces of the fuselage have scattered, we see that only Liam and a handful of others have survived.
What now? We’ve been treated to great characterization and a heart pounding crash sequence and now lies the promise of a great adventure story; how will this band of bearded survivors make it to safety? We are on the edge of our seats.
And then…well, then we discover that all of that handy filmmaking was just a set-up which has dropped us into a movie about….killer wolves. Oy. Now “The Grey” settles into the kind of routine you’d expect from a cheap horror film. The “Black Guy” gets picked off. The “Mean Guy” gets picked off. And so on. And so on.
As the dwindling band of trekkers trudged through the snow, my heart sank. The movie had become tiresome and rather predictable. Except for the ending, which I will not spoil. I’ll only say that after investing that much time and emotion, and suffering through several bloody wolf attacks, I wanted to get something out of the film’s conclusion…which I will NOT spoil. I refuse to give away that abrupt and wholly unsatisfactory ending. I will NOT give it away.
Instead, I’ll quote the woman a few rows behind me who, when the film went to black, signifying the ending, bellowed out with great disgust (and volume) the following phrase, and I quote: “OH! HALE NAW!”
Couldn’t have agreed with her more.
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