Neeson leads a lacklustre pack

The Grey

Director Joe Carnahan Screenwriters Joe Carnahan, Ian MacKenzie Jeffers Cast Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson

If you like dogs, don’t watch this film.

Based in Alaska, a typical plane crash results in seven men surviving. Why do guys always survive plane crashes? The flight attendants never survive. Only ever men, and one of them is always black. Even death doesn’t racially discriminate. So you’re stranded in the middle of a snowy plane wreck, faced with freezing temperatures, no food, and no water and what is your worse fear? Wolves apparently. Because dogs are that scary.

There is barely any background story to Liam Neeson’s character. He’s just some guy on a plane, who survives and apparently knows everything about wolves. How convenient.

Despite playing an extremely dull character, Liam Neeson can still pull off a strong and powerful performance. As the only credited headline actor, Neeson immediately takes the lead role with his knowledge of how to survive in the wild. Survival 101 and all that jazz. Out of the seven men who survive, he is the only one who has a lasting presence and the decent dialogue.

Back to the story, or what’s left of it, the wolves start trying to kill the survivors. They don’t even look like wolves, more like dogs with rabies. The wolves don’t even want to eat them; they just want to kill them. Don’t really blame the wolves.

But kudos to the film, they did actually use real wolves, not just the CGI stuff that _The Twilight Saga _uses. But I would have been more impressed if they had turned into werewolves.

The main plot is them fighting the wolves and trying to find some kind of civilisation. Landing in the middle of nowhere means that it was mainly the characters walking through a scenic landscape. This is nice and all, but I can see better stuff on my desktop background.

This film is mainly action, and not very good action at that. The movie doesn’t have a plot and tries to be really emotionally when people die, but I just wasn’t buying it. In the climax of the movie, which was meant to be the most emotional part, I was bored. They had longed it out beyond belief.

You’d think that a film with Liam Neeson would be an amazing film and that may be the main reason why you go see it but it really isn’t worth your time. Even if you do have two hours to waste, you’re better off watching paint dry.