With your humble correspondent firmly rooted in upstate New York for the time being (more vacation time can't come soon enough...I'm feeling the itch to go exploring our world yet again), we are going to have to just get by on cinema. Last night I took in Liam Neeson's latest job, "The Grey".
I'm pretty sure this movie's trailer got a lot of air time, so many of you may know the premise: Our man Liam, portraying a pretty depressed-looking hunter, working for an oil company in Alaska defending pipe workers from wolves, survives a plane crash with a handful of others east or nowhere, and find themselves in a life-or-death battle with a large pack of man-eating wolves.
That is how the trailer portrayed it at least. That is really all that far off, but if you come hoping for an action-packed thriller with Neeson battling angry wolves with any kind of weapon at his disposal, you are going to be pretty disappointed. Sure there is some action, but it is usually pretty quick, with jerky camera motion, ensuring that the moment passes in a pretty quick blur. No, this movie ends up playing out more like a drama, but that wasn't a bad thing.
Despite the lack of anticipated action, its still a good story, and the directors/writers obviously made an attempt at making this movie more than just about killing wildlife, and included a number of thematic elements, at least by my count. Sure you have the whole man against nature, man against man bit, but death is another biggie. I especially liked a few scenes where Liam philosophizes about what it is like to push off to the other side of the dark waters. He was the only name of note, I didn't recognize any one else, but the acting is solid, and I actually thought Liam was perfect for this role. He actually plays an Irishman, so he was a fit right from the beginning. I thought some of the lines were a bit cliched, and they probably could have done a better job with the wolves, which were a painfully obvious CGI, but overall I thought it came off quite well.
I feel like the whole "stranded in desolate place, how will we overcome all these adversities?!" type movies have pretty much run their course, but "The Grey" has a different feel to it, and the decent writing/acting, save a view cliched moments, make it worth a shout. I am happy to see Neeson return to the mainstream as well. He has always been one of my favorite actors, but after two near carbon copy movies ("Taken" and "Unknown") and a couple of straight-to-DVDs (yeah, that's rock-bottom right there) I feared his career may have jumped the shark. But he showed up and put in a good shift in "The Grey" and hopefully we can see him giving similar performances in the future.
Verdict: I'll say see it. Grade: B+
If you liked this movie you might also like: the bitter cold, maybe? If I ever find myself in the type of environment shown in this movie, I'll gladly serve myself up to the wolves.
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