The ostensible protagonist is John Ottway (Liam Neeson, who previously headlined Carnahan’s The A-Team), an Irish sharpshooter who protects the workers at an Alaskan oil refinery from the wildlife. We first hear him in voice-over narration writing a poignant letter to his wife, who we see in gauzy, brightly lit flashbacks that demand we assume she has either left him or died. Ottway’s hulking frame sags with regret, and his sadness is confirmed in the first few minutes when he puts the muzzle of his rifle into his mouth and prepares to end it all. Alas, he doesn’t go through with it, but instead boards a plane with dozens of other oil workers who are headed home. After the plane crashes (in spectacularly violent fashion that makes you feel every piece of metal breaking away in the frigid wind), only seven men survive to face the harsh Alaskan wilderness, which is shot by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (Warrior) in oppressive shades of white and swirling film grain. Ottway becomes the de facto leader because he seems to know the most about survival in the wilderness. The other members of the group are largely interchangeable, although a few stand out, including Diaz (Frank Grillo), a beligerent ex-con whose insistence that he feels no fear is testament not to his bravery, but to his bluster, and Talget (Dermot Mulroney), his bespectacled and soft-spoken opposite.

Although staying warm and finding food are immediate concerns, it quickly becomes apparent to the men that the main obstacle between them and survival is the pack of wolves that descend upon them the first night (the wolves are entirely computer-generated, and while they look a little cartoonish at times, like they escaped from a Twilight film, Carnahan wisely suggests their presence more than he shows them). Ottway is conveniently an expert in the film’s highly fictionalized version of wolf behavior, so he is able to narrate to the other men (and the audience) the various implications of their predicament. The manner in which Carnahan first introduces the wolves—a sea of glowing eyes in the darkness just feet from the fire around which the men are huddled—is a chilling moment that visually underscores the realization of just how vulnerable they (and we) are.

That scene and several others suggest that The Grey is more of a horror movie than a conventional thriller, particularly given its philosophical subtext about the nature of humankind’s precarious place in the natural world. We have become accustomed to, even comfortable with, watching characters die on screen, so it is both shocking and engaging that Carnahan actually pays attention to the mechanics by which life leaves the human body. In fact, death becomes the film’s binding theme, as characters leave the world in a variety of ways: Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but always violently. Some are torn apart by the wolves, others fall to their deaths, and in one particularly brutal moment, a character drowns in a river mere inches beneath the surface while another character struggles in vain to save him. In scene after scene Carnahan and Jeffers pound home the indifference of the universe to the plight of the dwindling number of men to the point that their survival of the plane crash becomes a kind of nihilistic joke: Why survive something so heinous if nothing awaits them but a different kind of death, one that is perhaps even more painful and horrifying? Are we watching a disguised entry in the Final Destination franchise?

It is not surprising, then, that the characters eventually debate the existence of God around a campfire, giving voice to precisely the question of whether they are alone in their endeavors. The film seems to confirm their existential dilemma, as we eventually find the lone survivor screaming at God to give him a sign, any kind of sign, and being met with only the blank indifference of an open expanse of gray sky. “I’ll do it myself,” he mutters before moving on to his own fate. Neeson was a natural choice for the role of Ottway, even though it seems to confirm a distressing trend of the great actor to slum in vengeful action roles in understated January releases (see Unknown and Taken). Neeson’s particular brand of masculinity blends physicality, resourcefulness, and reflection, and we can’t help but see more into his character than is probably there. The Grey works in a similar way, drawing us into a rather simple survival story but shading it with fundamental questions of faith that invite widely divergent responses.

Copyright ©2012 James Kendrick

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