Title: "The Grey"
Release Date: January 27, 2012
Length: 117 minutes
Rating: R
Genres: Thriller & Survival
Production Company: LD Entertainment & Scott Free Productions
Director: Joe Carnaham
The plane starts to shake, and shake more, then catastrophe strikes; the plane goes down. Unlike the ABC TV show "Lost," where the plane crashes on an unknown island in the pacific, in "The Grey," the plane crashes in the Alaskan tundra.
The movie is based on the short story "Ghost Walker" by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who also co-wrote the screenplay that became "The Grey." This thriller looms with fright as at any moment a lone wolf or the whole pack could possibly attack and rip a member of the other group to shreds. Even the men keeping watch over night are not safe, due to the wolves hunting their best at night, while the men are the most vulnerable as they sleep.
Liam Neeson starring as John Ottway in this gripping thriller leaves you on the edge of your seat as you watch the disgruntled cohort of oil-men fight for their lives every day in the frigid Alaskan wilderness. John is a protector of the camp where the oil-men stay, standing guard killing mostly wolves, along with other animals that attempt to enter the camp. The night before he and a group of oil-men are set to leave camp to the return back to civilization, John is moments from committing suicide, when he hears the howl of a wolf, and then decides not to go through with it.
The plane carrying the oil-men and John had been set to fly across Alaska back to civilization; however, the plane crashed in the tundra of Alaska. Many of the men on the plane die in the crash, while the survivors are dazed and confused when they come back to consciousness after the crash. John begins to survey the grounds when he notices a dead man off in the perimeter of the ruble from the plane crash. As he walks over to investigate, a grey wolf pops up from eating the corpse, to attack John. His fellow oil-men rush over and help save John, who suffers a large gash on his leg but manages to survive the ordeal. The men could not determine their exact geographical location, but they have become aware of the fact that they have unfortunately crashed with the hunting area of a pack of grey wolves.
From here, the men struggle to stay together in their collective goal to work as a team for their mutual survival. In this frigid blizzard condition that Alaska dishes out, they make a fire just outside of the wreckage of the main fuselage, maintaining a fire. Keeping watch over night is terrifying as the wolves lurk about in the surrounding darkness. The task of protecting the group is left up to only one man per shift throughout every waking hour. As the movie progresses, John and a few members of the surviving group work tirelessly to keep the group together, safe, alert and sane. Some want to move, some want to stay, while some just don’t care at all.
Soon, John convinces them all that no matter where they go in the surrounding area, the wolves will follow, and the wolves will slowly pick off the men one by one to weaken their group. This frightens some of the group, while motivating others to leave the crash site to seek cover in the distant tree line. From here, the men fight for their lives, trying to outwit the native grey wolves in their environment who want to protect their territory, as the men fight to intrude and survive.
At some points the movie seems a little corny and unnecessary, yet whenever the film starts to dull, it pulls you right back in. As I started to drift to sleep at a slow point during a lengthy conversation, a lone wolf, an outcast from the pack, charges and attacks one of the men in the group. The rest of the group kill the wolf, and the attacked man takes revenge after they cook and eat the wolf by cutting the wolf’s head off and throwing the head back to the wolves. This shows the devolution of the conscience of one of the men, representing the overall morale of the group. This act changes the relationship between the two fighting parties, i.e. The Grey Wolves vs. The Crash Survivors.
For those looking for an enthralling movie that keeps you thinking and slightly afraid of an imminent wolf strike: this is your movie. You will begin to feel relaxed for a few moments, but expect the unexpected.
