“This movie is effing intense” That’s how my friend who accompanied me to the Regal Canyon Viewing Stadium described The Grey, several times during its showing.
I love going to the movies. At heart, I’m a comedy fan but when going over the list of movies that came out this past weekend there didn’t seem to be any decent comedies. In fact, only one release this weekend was labeled as a ‘comedy’ and that was “One for the Money starring Katherine Heigl. Don’t get me wrong, Heigl is hot and all, with blonde hair, that is.
Despite other good looking action flicks, like Red Tails (although I’m not a major fan of a WWII film with a dubstep soundtrack) I bought a ticket for The Grey.
Starting off we meet John Ottway (Liam Neeson), basically a bodyguard hired to protect oil workers from wolves in the Alaskan wild. On a flight back to Anchorage, with other oil workers, the plane goes down in the Alaska tundra miles away from civilization. Only six members of the crew, including Ottway, survive. After staying the night at the scene of the crash, and taking part in first round of Oil Workers vs. Giant Wolves, the men begin their search for safety.
Neeson is great in this film. Being the only big name in the movie, he has maybe a little more than his share of screen time, but with an actor of his caliber, I believe it’s fair. Neeson has packed a lot of emotion in to his work ever since suffering the loss of his wife in 2009 due to brain injury sustained during a skiing accident. The emotion is felt watching Neeson’s character deal with the loss of his wife in the film.
Like my buddy said, this film is intense. A combination of great camera work, breathtaking shots, a great cast and some blood thirsty villains make this film as dramatic as anything in the theaters right now. Luring all of your focus in at times, followed by some loud and very violent wolf on man violence provides for audience-wide jumps and gasps. The film isn’t without its laughs though. While facing some pretty dark situations, the rough neck characters provide some dry/dark humor that keeps the film from basically being an hour and 57 minute effort to kill all tourism to the great state of Alaska.
As far as the ending goes, all I can say is don’t rush out of your seat when the credits start rolling. Be sure to stick around if you want to see the true ending of the film.