Director: Joe Carnahan

Staring: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, James Badge Dale, Joe Anderson, Frank Grillo

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is a security guard on an oil rig in northern Alaska. He secures the rig not against criminals, but instead against the wild and ravenous wolves of the area. As he says, the only people who venture to this “end of the world are outcasts, drifters, loners and assholes.”

Once his job is done he is able to take a plane back to Anchorage. Ottway, wanting nothing to do with the lousy and annoying co-workers, drifts off into sleep. While he is asleep the plane encounters a winter storm and begins to fall out of the sky. Ottway hangs on as the plane rips apart on its descent.

After blacking out Ottway awakes in a snow drift alone in the white emptiness that is the Alaskan wilderness. Wandering back to the crash site he finds smoldering and twisted metal and only five other survivors. They assimilate themselves and create a fire and soak in the reality that they are now faced with. Darkness sets in and the men are suppressed, unable to see beyond the range of the glow of their fire. They quickly encounter a deadly enemy, the wild wolves of that area. Unlike wild wolves in the lower United States, these wolves are huge, nomadic and very territorial. They have seen the plane crash as an attack on their territory. As such, they seek revenge on the survivors. The men must battle the constant threats of the wolves and the bitter cold while attempting to walk to civilization through one of the harshest climates on the planet.

“The Grey” is something unexpected at the movie theater. It does have the “Bear Grylls” adventure expedition aspect with Liam Neeson pulling together some very “MacGyver-esque” tactics but it is also a horror and suspenseful film that does not appear so to the average moviegoer. On the surface the film is not designed to feel like a horror story, underneath the epic survival story “The Grey” is so much more.

The film has interesting sub-themes paired with the story of survival. Ottway is burdened with his past, as are the other main characters. They each drift back into their past lives, but are jolted back into their own bleak and depressing ones and forced to fight for their future. The characters also find themselves questioning God because of their situation, debating his existence and the reasons they are put in their situation. These themes add to the story and help to paint very deep and complex characters.

Typically the horror genre is paired with a villain who usually has a knife or something deadly. Perhaps, like in “The Shining,” the villain becomes the main character through cabin fever or some other dose of insanity. “The Grey” has nothing of the sort. The villain, instead, is Mother Nature in the form of the wild animals, the bitter cold and the terrain. Immediately following the crash, they are surrounded and attacked by these elements.

The rawness of the elements understandably plays a huge part in the survival of the men and in the theme of the movie. From blizzards, to snow drifts and bone-chilling winds, the men are always faced with a blinding and bitter cold. Shockingly, most of the movie was filmed in the northern wilderness in temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero. The actors were actually in the freezing cold delivering their dialogue, adding a degree of authenticity to the performance. In addition, the sound of the constant wind is blasted through the speakers for many parts of the movie, disorienting and chilling the audience with its howling chill.

“The Grey” is an excellent film. The constant bombardment from the wolves and snow feel very real. The acting from Liam Neeson and the other main characters is phenomenal. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and felt very cold and isolated alongside the characters. Although it’s not the best movie to escape to on a below-zero winter night, “The Grey” is sure to leave the viewers thinking about it long after the final scene.