'The Grey' (2012)
LIDDELL ENTERTAINMENT
DIRECTED BY: Joe Carnahan
STARRING: Liam Neeson
“You won’t find much poetry for a jackass as you will here.”
When the final scene of The Grey begins to conclude, and suddenly cuts to the credits, my audience was rowdy. Some two guys behind me were crying foul, “Is that it?!?” and someone infront of me booed directly at the screen from his seat. As I was leaving my seat towards the exit, and even to the lobby, I could still hear people chatting about that final moment; a couple asking “Hey, a Grey-Part 2?”, and somebody next to them chuckling over the thought.
By the time I got there, The Grey was the talk of the lobby. But why? It became clear immediately when I realized I was one of the few people smiling at that good ending: my audience didn’t know how much they cared for these characters.
What makes The Grey such an excellent survival drama is that it understands what ‘survival’ and ‘drama’ truly mean. Joe Carnahan directs something that knows the humanity in peril, the mentality in urgency, and the confusion in loneliness. In situations such as these characters, there is no time for badass one-liners, no time for bravery, no miraculous happy endings… no chance of surviving. The only things you have time for is to gather whatever resources you can, and accept your fate.
The story follows a group of oil workers as they fly back home, only to be involved in what could be one of the most intense plane-crashing sequences you’ll ever see onscreen (centering the intensity on one close frame is definitely the way to go). That group drops to about seven survivors, stranded in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. Alaska is a surprisingly small place. It’s roughly four to five times the size of California, but with a population almost three-forth a million, and that’s mostly in one location, far, far away from where this survival group is. Ottoway and his group are looking for people and shelter, but instead they only find snow, trees, and the main antagonist: wolves.
While Liam Neeson is the key actor here, he isn’t the main character; he just happens to be the last character to survive. And that’s the key to how this film is different: you don’t have an upstaging character, instead you have honest and real characters with their own stories and significance. For the sake of the characterizations, I’ll just focus on my two favorite characters: the obvious hero and the obvious jackass.
Here’s the hero, Ottoway, played by the always-magnificent Liam Neeson. Right from the start, Ottoway had nothing to live for. He has trouble with a woman, of course (but more on that later), has nowhere to go, and nothing exciting waiting for him on this flight. But after this sudden planecrash, he’s suddenly given a test of will. Suddenly, he’s got some thing to live up to: a responsibility, a ‘particular set of skills’ (trololol), to stretch the time these men have to live. If there’s anything he can do, it’s to use his past knowledge for the sake of the last people he’ll ever talk to, and to realize how he’d rather die: instead of having the end of a rifle in his mouth, a fighting chance against the faces of these monstrous animals.
And then there’s the jackass. *Yes, there’s always gotta be a jackass involved, doesn’t it? And he always dies first* While he is a jackass, he’s given a lot of fresh air throughout his escapades with death. One of the more powerful scenes in this film involves this jackass as he confronts his stupidly brave face at Ottoway at a campfire. Ottoway tells him off for being a fool without fear, and jackass tells Ottoway off for being the unclaimed leader of this group… then suddenly a wolf attacks jackass, Ottoway and the ragtag shake it off him, and the jackass… stab after stab after stab, destroys this dead animal with his blunt knife. The ragtag laugh and joke at his irony, while jackass tears apart this animal without budging. After having his moment, jackass backs off and shakes away from the campfire, looking at this dead animal, and his group… and apologizes to Ottoway for being who he is.
You won’t find much poetry for a jackass as you will here.
It’s really graceful that these men joke and laugh at the campfires, during the few 'peaceful' moments here. My audience was laughing along with them throughout, as if we were all a part of this tremendous nightmare. And they should, because this film does that one thing that thrillers often never get right: it gives you something to care about. It gives you a sense that you’ve seen or conversed with these people before, and suddenly they’re on the big screen and fighting for their lives, reacting the way you’d (really) react. They give an overall reason to sympathize and encourage in their journey to survive.
By the time it’s the jackass’ turn, he’s a changed man. He knew he wasn’t going to survive early in the film, but now, he knows he’s not going to survive. His leg is about to give out, and he honestly cannot traverse anymore. Despite Ottoway and the last of them telling him *Don’t give up, we’re gonna make it*, he knows there is not point B. He sits down on a log near the river, and looks over the beautiful Alaskan site.
If there’s a gripe to be had with this otherwise-fantastic drama, it’s its use of flashing back. You rightfully stick with these characters throughout their ordeal, but there are moments where scenes shift between the surviving group trapped in Alaska, and scenes of homelife with family and other events. Ottoway’s father and his poem, the flowing hair of a daughter tickling her father’s face, the recent bar scene early in the film… these moments break the relentless pacing, and feel unnecessary for the few characters they impact.
Also, maybe I was sitting too close to the screen (the effect of looking for a seat in pitch darkness), but the picture quality itself was pretty grainy. For a snowy white setting, there were moments where the color was sometimes too grey (if that’s possible), or too hot and saturated during the campy moments. It doesn’t detract from this amazing experience in any way, but, at least from my viewpoint, it was noticeable on occasions. Maybe my film classes are getting to me.
And then there’s Ottoway’s woman. *Yes, there always gotta to be a woman involved, doesn’t it?* Her flashbacks felt very out-of-place, at first. Her moments didn’t move anything forward, and instead felt like an intrusion… however, this is eventually forgivable when you realize why she’s so important as Ottoway’s woman. No spoilers, but by the end, her intrusions are forgivable, and she’s not your average love interest, anymore. But still, they feel superfluous.
Whatever other survivor thriller you’ve seen, though, toss them out the water. You’re not gonna find cheap thrills or cheap throw-away characters here; instead, you’re given the intense reality of such matters. This isn’t a throw-away survivor thriller; nay, this is what thrillers should strive to achieve. The direction in The Grey knows modern survival thrillers, and how redundant and wasteful they are.
In The Grey, there is no happy ending.
☆☆☆☆
-Ant
-Ant