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Capone finds great depth, characters, and wolves in Joe Carnahan's THE GREY!!!
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
The latest and greatest work from director Joe Carnahan (NARC, SMOKIN' ACES, THE A-TEAM ) both is and isn't exactly what you think it is. Sure, it's a movie with a group of oil company grunts returning home from Alaska for the winter, and when their plane crashes in the wilderness they spend much of the film fending off a steady barrage of wolf attacks. But THE GREY is so much more than that. It's really the story of men who need a life-or-death struggle such as this to remember that life is worth living, even if death is a certainty, either by the fangs of a wolf or the extreme and ruthless cold.
When we first meet Ottway, we discover he's being paid to walk the parameter of the company property to kill wolves that threaten employees. He carries a high-powered rifle with him at all times, and can snap it off his shoulder and shoot in a split second. He's also deeply depressed, and on the eve of his departure, he's preparing to kill himself by eating his gun. We know that his pain comes from something to do with his wife (Anne Openshaw), who we see in combinations of flashbacks and vision-like flashes. We're kept in the dark for most of the movie about why memories of her bring him such pain, but in the end that doesn't really matter.
The plane crash sequence is one of the finest I've ever experienced--it's chaotic, violent, and unbearably loud. It's the best I've seen since the one staged for ALIVE (a film that gets a joking reference here just before all hell breaks loose). Once on the ground, the survivors gather together to figure out whether to stay by the wreckage or start walking south to look for civilization. The presence of wolves makes the decision easier, and since Ottway has a knowledge of wolf behavior, they feel fairly confident that the walk will kill them before the animals. Wrong. Carnahan does a fantastic job keeping us more or less in constant fear of these attacks; they come unexpectedly in most cases and are over before we're even sure what has happened. And they are frequently bloody, in case you hadn't guessed.
Ottway emerges as the natural leader, although his authority is challenged and questioned, especially by Diaz, a primo asshole played by Frank Grillo. And as Ottway explains the wolf pack mentality of an alpha male leading a group of wolves that are constantly challenging his leadership status, we realize that we are not as far removed as we'd like to think. Other familiar faces in The Grey include an almost unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney and the always-calming force known as Dallas Roberts.
As often as he comes close, Carnahan (who co-wrote the screenplay with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, the writer of the original short story "Ghost Walker") never turns things ridiculous or impossible. What these men do is all within the realm of possibility, and we know this because sometimes they die attempting some pretty insane actions to escape their pursuers. At one point, Ottway makes the point that wolves are the only animal that seeks revenge, and now that I know that I'm as unnaturally scared of being eaten by them as I am a shark in the ocean.
Perhaps the most glorious element of THE GREY is watching Liam Neeson really rip into this character, who is most definitely not an empty-headed action hero trying to save his co-workers. Ottway is just barely hanging on; his will to live was nearly sapped even before the plane went down. It's fascinating to listen to him and the other survivors spill their guts and examine what they have in their lives that keeps them going. And it makes the many deaths much more tragic, because these are real characters shedding blood in that snow. If I read a single critic or hear a single person tell me the film has too much talking or moves too slow, I'll slap them across their dirty mouth. Character development in a film like this is critical and necessary to building the drama and making us care when a life is lost.
I'm slightly disappointed that THE GREY wasn't released at the end of 2011, so it might have been considered for all of these awards accolades. Then again, I like that it won't get lost in the end-of-the-year logjam of "important" films. I've seen the film twice now, and I'd watch it again right now if I could. It got even better for me the second time because I could stop being tense about when the next wolf attack was coming and concentrate on the superb acting on display from each actor. As much as I'm sure the genre crowds will love this movie, I actually consider THE GREY a powerful human drama that also happens to have a steady stream of wolf attacks. Whatever it takes to get you in the theater, go with that, but I'd consider this film the first must-see-on-the-big-screen work of the year. I don't see all that blowing snow and vast landscape working on even the best home theater set up. Plus, an angst-ridden Liam Neeson can't be contained on the small screen. Go see this now.
-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
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Jan 27, 2012 1:03:06 PM CST
Lisbeth Salander character would've made a great Robin in Nolan's Dark Knights
by yaphet_kottos_ebony_lovequake
Alfred could have sat her down and told her to be more sociable...and so it Rises
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Jan 27, 2012 1:05:00 PM CST
I wouldn't go down on a woman w gray pubic hair
by yaphet_kottos_ebony_lovequake
unless a hot 19 year old dyed it gray
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Will be listening to the angry frat guy retards complain about the lack of action. It's like they tricked people to go into seeing a good movie by making you think it was a movie that should have been called "Liam Neeson vs. Wolves". Really pumped to see this.
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Good thing the movie has this stuff, because Joe Carnahan himself does not.
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Jan 27, 2012 1:23:42 PM CST
where can I get teen sex slaves like Neeson's daughter in Taken?
by yaphet_kottos_ebony_lovequake
i have extra bedroom
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YOU WOULD GO DOWN ON DANNY GLOVERS OLD SPUNKSHAKE! FACT!
YOU DO NOT LIKE GIRLS-FACT! -
Jan 27, 2012 1:37:16 PM CST
So we've got oil workers as victims, nature as the (unrealistically behaving) bad guy, and a production company called '1984 Private Defense Contractors'
by kevred
Hmm.
I know lots of somewhat dumb people like watching shows like 'Man vs. Wild', but what is this, the 1950s? We have to use a nearly-endangered animal species that absolutely does not seek out humans as the villain, when it's painfully clear that the humans have always been the abusers in the man-nature relationship?
If someone who's seen the flim can tell me whether there is a real point of connection and understanding between man and wolf in the film - and not just a "huh, they kind of represent the worst of our behavior, now let's kill 'em" moment - then I might give it a chance.
I do like the sound of the near-death musing/brooding/expressing of fears and hopes. That sounds powerful, and interesting. But if the mechanism to get the characters there is just the same sensationalized, exaggerated cartoon version of "nature is bad" we've always seen, then to heck with it.
Humans are not fighting for survival against big bad wolves. We're slaughtering them left and right because they're an inconvenience to the amoral accumulation of lots of money. -
Did you stay for it?
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Metaphorically I mean.
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I would hope there's a disclaimer explaining that at the end of the film to discourage more wolf hunting. But from a storytelling standpoint, I dont care if a wolf attack has never been recorded. Thats not the point. It makes for a tense story and a good juxtaposition against the flailing pack of surviving humans. So I'm fine with it.
Plus, Neeson gets to punch one. -
A shark? C'mer you pointy toothed bastard!
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Bring back the Killer Bees!
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And then I'll make my movie about carnivorous horses.
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Jan 27, 2012 2:41:02 PM CST
Killer mimes are scarier than killer wolves, bees, boars, and horses put together.
by leviciousfishus
I almost -- ALMOST -- wrote the F word which rhymes with tract.
I will only stoop so far. -
STACKED!
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*motions stroking his chin*
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Jan 27, 2012 2:48:18 PM CST
But seriously, the plot for this film sounds utterly inane.
by leviciousfishus
A guy who is paid to kill wolves who threaten employees?
Are these WEREwolves? Because--if they're regular old wolves--this guy would have absolutely NOTHING to do.
Lazy. Lazy.
Lazy writing. -
Puh-lease.
My name is Sarah Palin, and I approve this screenplay. -
It may seem like Liam Neeson vs. wolves, I think on the merits of his acting alone will make this worth seeing. I am looking forward to it.
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Yes, Neeson lost his wife, Natasha Richardson, to a ski accident in 2009, but this movie is no meditation on life imitating art imitating mourning; His character's grief is there for the same reason it is in a vintage Mel Gibson action flick: to establish our antihero's state of desperate cunning.
THE GREY is just another mashup of monster movie, psycho-drama, and mawkish bromance.
Here's the jest (spoilers): Neeson plays Ottway, a sharpshooting wolf exterminator for a drilling operation somewhere above the Arctic Circle. In voiceover, he tells us that the remote outpost attracts "outcasts, rejects, convicts, assholes - men unfit for mankind". Strap in for a subzero DIRTY DOZEN! Their plane crashes and these hard-luck bastards have to make it back to their outpost through a pack of pissed off wolves (because wolves, we're advised, are the only animals "that will seek revenge" ...I shit you not).
From here the action takes a turn for the preposterous. We're not just talking standard moviemaking concessions like hoods down and coats blowing open in minus-50-degree gale. We're talking hand-to-hand combat with animatronic wolves that behave less like canines than like frenzied barracuda. We're talking uncalled-for stunts like a running leap off a cliff when a simple rappel would suffice.
This sort of thing - demonized wildlife, VERTICAL LIMIT-style acrobatics - can be entertaining, of course, as long as no one takes himself too seriously. Yet, Carnahan is determined to prove he's deep, and he's anxious that you not miss any of that depth. He has one guy actually scream to the wolves "You're not the animals, WE'RE the animals!" This same dude, as he dies, is revealed to have NO MAS tattooed on his neck. No, really. And his demise follows an exchange in which the men, tearing up, share their first names for the first time - a scene, you think, that must have been workshopped at America's last Iron John retreat.
Yeah, the cinematography is stellar. But, it actually works AGAINST the movie because it hints at a version that could have been a fraction as violent and twice as frightening.
And Neeson's performance is very good as well, if only for the fact that he's actually convincing as he recites, for the third or fourth time, a poem attributed to Ottway's dad - an eighth-grader's parody of Shakespeare's Henry V.
Seriously, THIS is what's considered a "serious" character piece? I guess that's what happens when generations of males are raised on CALL OF DUTY, GODS OF WAR, and a now-decade-long romanization of the U.S. Military not seen since WWII.
The only good thing that might come from this is the realization of the need for more FEMALE film critics, if only for the reason of having reviews based on content rather than how "badass" something is.
Oh, and for those of you going just to see Neeson go up against a wolf...
He doesn't. He tapes the glass and knife to his hands, then it cuts to black.
After the credits, there's a shot of him breathing fast and the wolf dead next to him.
I put "spoilers" up there, so don't bitch about it you badass, Conservative, salt of the earth warriors.
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Jan 27, 2012 4:24:09 PM CST
i looked up the schedule at my local theater earlier this week...
by brannagins law
because I was curious about maybe seeing this. And then when I ddin't see it listed I thought, oh I missed it...BECAUSE IT COMES OUT TODAY. The way this thing has been pushed I thought it has been out for a month already.
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Got my ticket for Sunday,being a 15 rated film here in the UK hopefully that means not to many young idiots pissing me off because they can't turn their cell phones off for 2 fucking hours......i won't hold my breath though
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AICN Screenings = Unanimous praise on AICN.
So simple even Harry Knowles could understand it. -
What one man can do, another can do!
And today, I'm gonna kill the motherfucker.
I find the inclusion of wolves a little less than realistic (bears would have been better) but the way some of you are crying on your tampons about it makes me say Fuck it. -
Not to be a pedantic asshole, because I am totally seeing this movie, but: that line about the alpha male fighting for dominance is pretty stupid for a character who's supposed to know shit about wolves. They're not like chimps - the leaders of the pack aren't chosen in a badassery contest. They're the leaders because they're the parents of most of the other wolves, literally, as in they're just the mom and dad. But the "alpha wolf" thing has been repeated so many times, especially by dog trainers, that now it's one of those things people think they know - like "you only use 1% of your brain."
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except for the wolves part...plane full of soccer players crashes in the Andes mountains and they resort to cannibalism
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Jan 28, 2012 12:39:05 AM CST
The cgi wolves took me out of it a bit but it was a good character study
by cgih8r
The wolves' behavior didn't seem realistic with the aggressive attacks on non-wounded humans. They behaved more like lions than wolves. Even Liam's job of shooting wolves that threaten the perimeter seemed far fetched. The wolves some how magically making it down the cliff face they jumped off of and continue following them. It just felt like this movie was made by an action director who was trying to prove he could get serious but couldn't quite escape his hollywood immaturity of putting dumb action in to draw a larger audience. I understand the wolves kept the movie tense and exciting but I just think if you want to make a raw character driven story that asks us to reflect on life, then it should keep things real even if you don't get the same jump in your seats scare value from your monsters...but i guess for most audiences this is as real as life gets. The acting is excellent and without the stupid hollywood action crap this movie is solid.
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is in this too. he was awesome in The Pacific and Rubicon. Not one mention? weak
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I haven't seen the movie. I just wish wolves are portrayed the right way. Humans kill them on their turf, sometimes just for the fun of it. Just add oil drillers and lots of weapons and this becomes a Palin's endorsed right wing advertising. I respect people who have different political views. I don't respect stupidity. Can anyone who has seen this film tell if it's another first degree bad wolves, weapons and victimized humans, or have they inserted SOME smart twist or message that would hep a bit get people smarter about animals?
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I never thought the wolves were "bad." They seemed to be defending their territory. I had no sense that the humans were "better" per se, although clearly the audience was more likely to root for them. The wolves were intelligent, loyal, courageous, and even had a certain sense of honor about them (I might be anthropomorphizing too much, but there it is.)
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Call it a "character study" if you wish, I'll just call it pretty much pointless and unsatisfying. The top-notch acting couldn't save it, nor could the bevy of intense action scenes. At the end of the movie, we just sat there,..stunned.., complete strangers in the theater looked at each other with a "What the hell?" look on their faces. Some have been comparing this movie to The Edge. I wouldn't. The Edge is vastly superior in every way.
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Jan 28, 2012 1:53:05 PM CST
Did you stay through the end credits? The film is a mirror of his father's poem.
by pixelsmack
It's not about living or dying. It's about taking the responsibility to fight for either.
The film is a masterpeice.
Also one of the top three plane crash sequences I've ever seen. It's so visceral and ugly, like many of the wolf encounters.
You'll never want to fly again. -
...him fight the alpha wolf but it makes sense within the story and the theme that they cut right there.
Otherwise what do you have? Even if he does kill the alpha he's still going to just die in the woods or be killed by the rest of the wolves.
BTW - HE DOES KILL THE ALPHA WOLF.
Stay until after the credits and you get a shot of the wolf on it's side, breathing it's last breath, like the wolf at the beginning.
Still - SOME MAJOR FUCKING FALSE ADVERTISING given the last couple movies Liam has done (Taken and unknown).
Everyone who saw the trailer was like "Liam punches wolves" - for obvious reasons.
It's a let down not to see that fight. I've got to think it was budget telling the story because if they could do it correctly that would be the most epic man vs. animal battle ever captured on film.
A wolf is just large enough to be deadly to man but not powerful enough to easily kill a man like a bear, tiger, shark, etc. -
(SPOILERS)
My opinion: they could easily have shown that fight. There have been countless human-animal fights in cinema. No problem.
But that would have turned it into something very different from what it was: a meditation on mortality. "The Grey" is death itself, and the point is the way we face it, and our lives, not whether we win some particular battle.
So...the very last image (after the titles) shows the wolf dying (breathing its last) and Liam pillowing his head against it. The audience is welcome to come to their own conclusions. If you want an optimistic view, it was established in conversation that if you killed the alpha, the fight is (at least temporarily) over. So Liam won the fight, and his life, and is resting and will get up and make his way to safety. There are people around: remember the logging?
That's the positive spin. The negative? He and the wolf killed each other. Take your pick. -
Jan 28, 2012 3:04:27 PM CST
There are no wolf-vs-human fights on film that I know of...
by totalreality
The Edge has a bear but that's was not hand-to-hand combat like a human v. wolf fight would be.
It's much easier to shoot that kind of "fight" and they did a good job of it.
The wolves in The Grey were pretty low quality CGI mixed with animatronics and puppets for the most part. Some of the wide shots looked like real animals but there was something blurry about them even then. I'm specifically thinking of the scene by the river when they were running with the remaining two survivors.
The combat around the camp fire was tightly-shot shakey cam and bourne-ish because, given the of the budget, that was all they could show without it looking too cheesy and fake.
So working with those contraints it would be pretty hard to do a realistic, wide angle wolf v. human fight that wasn't just Liam wrestling around with a fur rug with teeth.
That being said, I liked the movie. The first 20 minutes were the best part of it for me. I think it peaked when Ottway says "I'm going to start beating the shit out of you in about 5 seconds".
The wolves were too fake looking for me. Especially the glowing eyes. They don't freaking glow a bright yellow. They "reflect" the torch light so it would not have looked that way. It looked cheesy to me.
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This was one of the most depressing, pointless movies I've ever seen. I DO NOT need to fork over $20.00 to be told that life is a pointless and godless struggle that ends in futility and defeat. I go to movies to escape and enjoy myself, not to be drummed over the head by some artsy-fartsy ideas about nihilism. I would have had a better time at a funeral.
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Liam should get some awards for his work. The whole cast was excellent, the fact that you get to know something about them makes hurt when they go down.
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I'm no animal rights activist in fact I'm a hunter myself. But it doesn't fill me with confidence in the makers of this film when they create a main character with such a ridiculous job title. Guarding the men from wolves while they work? LOL! You are about as likely to be mauled by a rabid beaver while simultaneously choking to death on a wad of spearment gum as you are to be attacked by a wolf as you stand working among a group of other men.
Not saying that automatically ruins the film but if the writer/director/producer are oblivious to how stupid that job title is then I'm not optimistic about other choices they may have made wih the film. -
It took me the 5 seconds to read the blatently obvious symbolism the FIRST time they showed the idiotic "poem"...
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You probably actually think that "Watchmen" the graphic novel is a legitimate piece of literature, and that "Batman" has deep meaning, too.
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It's fine that it's more drama than genre movie - there's something else they cheat us on. I won't spoil it, though.
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....its just a great flick. No need to think too much. The wolves are there, but the movie is character driven. You will feel for these humans. Just sit back and enjoy it.
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When they are sitting around eating a wolf they cooked, one guy comments on the movie Alive.
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I stayed to the scene past the credits and I didn't see how it was all that significant. Someone explain to me please.
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talked with someone, no I didn't really miss anything. Whether or not he survived the fight to me is a non-issue, I guess to some people it made a difference.
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Jan 29, 2012 2:32:01 AM CST
@hipshot, thanks for the comment, that's what I call constructive talkback on AICN.
by flynn-lives
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It's not necessary for wolves to actually be dangerous to oil workers for the job position to exist.
The wolves just have to be occasionally visible near the perimeter.
Even if they would never attack a person in a million years, if they're visible the field workers might be scared and not want to work, so the company would probably hire someone to 'protect' them from the non-existent wolf threat.
I think it's actually supposed to be darkly amusing that a guy who makes his living killing harmless animals for no reason is thrust by fate into a situation where the animals have the upper hand. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS14w5AKj34
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Someone might have already caught this, but Dermot Mulroney's character Talget sports a baseball cap throughout the film with the initials WY on it. They work for a company that is unnamed and referred to as the corporation early on that doesn't care about its employees.
WY=Weyland-Yutani. Ridley Scott and Scott Free produced the film. Coincidence? I don't think so.
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