The Grey
Tags: philosophical, psychedelic, depressing, realism, flashback

Plot synopsis:
John Ottway (Liam Neeson) works in Alaska killing the wolves that threaten an oil drilling team. We see a scene of him shooting a wolf and then watching, with his hand on it almost as though he's sorry for it, as it breaths more and more slowly and finally dies. On his last day on the job, Ottway writes a letter to his wife Ana (Anne Openshaw) who has left him, that he plans to commit suicide. While holding the barrel of the Winchester Model 70 in his mouth, Ottway hears the howl of a wolf, which stops him.Upon completing the job, the team and Ottway head home on a plane that crashes in a blizzard. Ottway then sees a vision of his wife but awakens to find one of the team, Lewenden (James Badge Dale), mortally wounded. Ottway calms him, letting him know that he is going to die, and then Lewenden dies peacefully.Ottway sets the survivors to task collecting material for a fire. He sees a woman in need of help, but finds her being eaten by a gray wolf who also attacks Ottway. He is rescued by the others and explains that they are most likely in the wolves' territory. After starting a fire, the survivors take turns keeping watch. While urinating, Hernandez (Ben Bray) is killed by two wolves. The remaining survivors find his body in the morning and Ottway suggests they leave the crash site because they are wide open to attack. Diaz (Frank Grillo) questions Ottway's leadership and begins defying his orders. Before they leave, Ottway and the others remove the wallets from many of the bodies with the intention of returning them to surviving family members. Hendrick says a prayer and thanks to God for allowing them to survive the crash and then the survivors leave the crash site.While hiking across the snow, Flannery (Joe Anderson) falls behind and is killed by three wolves. The remaining survivors continue on and make camp in the woods, where tension between Ottway and Diaz comes to a head as the survivors create makeshift weaponry. Diaz threatens Ottway with his knife, but is disarmed by Ottway. The survivors meet the alpha wolf, who sends an omega to test Diaz. However, the survivors are able to kill the wolf and eat it. Diaz severs its head and throws it back as a symbol of defiance.The group stop to build a campfire at night and they start a conversation. Diaz tells the group how the men who died aren't in heaven and there is no god, Talget admits that he believes but Ottway confesses that he too is an atheist, but he wishes that he could believe. Burke (Nonso Anozie) awakens and he begins to hallucinate from hypoxia. He goes back to sleep in front of the campfire. The group bonds over personal stories. A blizzard approaches and they try to preserve the campfire to prevent hypothermia. Despite their best efforts, Ottway finds Burke's frozen lifeless body in the morning.Further in their travels, the survivors come across a high canyon wall within which, screened by trees, they identify a river. Hendrick (Dallas Roberts) jumps to the trees to secure a line as a means of traverse. Diaz and Ottway make it across the line to join Hendrick, but Talget (Dermot Mulroney), who is afraid of heights, loses his glasses on the way and freezes out of fear. He reluctantly continues across, but soon finds his injured hand has begun bleeding and he gets caught up in the makeshift rope. Talget struggles to untangle himself, but the line breaks and he crashes through the trees to the ground. Wounded, Talget sees a vision of his daughter and is dragged away by the wolves. While attempting to save Talget, Diaz falls from the tree and injures his knee.The three remaining survivors continue their trek and make it to the river, but an exhausted Diaz can make it no further, preferring to stay and die than go on. Hendrick tries to convince Diaz to carry on, but Ottway tells him it is futile. They give each other final goodbyes and Ottway and Hendrick leave Diaz on the riverside, as the crackling of branches caused by wolves is heard.Ottway and Hendrick continue, but are soon chased by wolves again. Fleeing, Hendrick falls in the river and he gets his foot stuck between underwater rocks. Ottway jumps into the river to attempt to save him but Hendrick drowns in the river. Freezing and alone, Ottway then curses God and asks for His help with no response.Ottway continues on without his wet coat but he is eventually dazed from hypothermia taking effect. He then stops and pulls out each wallet collected from the dead, examines the mementos they contain, and places them in a pile on the snow, adding his own wallet as well. Suddenly, the pack of wolves surrounds him, leading Ottway to discover that he has walked right into their den. He is soon spotted by the alpha wolf and realises that it is female while the other pack members back off. Ottway sees another vision of his wife, which now reveals that she was dying on a hospital bed, and suggests the reason for his earlier attempted suicide. Deciding to make a stand, he tapes broken miniature alcohol bottles to his fist and a knife to his other hand. He recites his father's poem aloud to himself, then charges the alpha wolf before the screen goes black. In a post-credits scene, the back of Ottway's head is seen laying on the side of the presumably dying Alpha wolf's stomach, as it breaths more and more slowly, a bookend to the similar scene at the beginning.

Review: An airplane loaded with roughneck oilmen crashes in Alaska and the survivors trek through a snow storm to survive while a pack of wolves kill them off one by one.Some reviewers loved it.
This is a really depressing and disturbing film - almost certainly a bust at the box office but "The Grey" is really really good - an existentialist parable - in wolves clothing.Life is nasty - it is a struggle without meaning except for the struggle itself and the nobility in having done that well regardless of the end result.
That's what the film was about - not an action picture - not a scientifically accurate portrayal of wolves but an allegory - a metaphor about the existential view of life.The circling and relentless wolves - the beautiful yet cold and uncaring Siberian landscape - the different attitudes of the participants to the pointless struggle yet heroic effort which no one will ever know about - succinct, powerful and poignant.One of the few films that will be remembered in future decades in what has been a especially weak year.
This is my first review ever, so please pardon me.I won't talk about the plot in order not to spoil it but i'll just say it's not just another chick-flick/action movie nor a documentary one It's a man vs nature kind of movies like you've never seen before.I saw the movie, blew my mind ,then-as usual- I came to read some reviews about it on here .Then i saw many "hated it" reviews.
The film goes against the grain right from the outset and it's a stylistic decision from the creators that simultaneously elevates it above many of it's counterparts but also probably limits it's broader appeal - an early scene immediately after the crash where Neeson comforts a dying man is one of the most powerful and beautiful pieces of acting I've seen in recent years.
Writer/director Joe Carnahan ("The A-Team") has turned a new leaf in this harrowing wilderness survival thriller, a film as dedicated to exploring the true extent of the human will to live as much as shocking its audience with menacing wolf attacks.Neeson leads the pack in all manner of ways.
Paid to protect oil workers from nature's dangers (especially wolves), Neeson's character Ottway turns out to be a group of drillers' best chance for survival when their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness near a wolf den.
Most movies would've killed him off before he got too annoying, but Carnahan and co-writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (who wrote the short story the film's based on), have more interesting plans in store for him.
As Ottway wrestles with these same issues, its Neeson's performance that makes it hit home."The Grey" gives its audience the rare gift of genre-film entertainment with some serious food for thought and an ample dose of emotion.
What this film is not is an action-adventure or one about Liam Neeson punching wolves.
No, the trailer really pulled a number on anyone expecting a loud movie about wolf killing.The film's setup is simple: Neeson's bodyguard-like character to a group of men drilling in Alaska finds himself and several others having survived a plane crash and facing the cold, harsh wilderness in an attempt to get back to civilization.
If you're like me you saw the trailers with Liam Neeson strapping glass bottles to his hands and fighting wolves and thought, "Holy cow!
They were selling an action movie when they really made an intensely somber film about a group of desperate men as they try to survive a plane crash.
At first sight, this seems like the kind of movie to be panned by critics and audiences alike, being an action-survival film.
When i was able to get into the special premiere showing, i will have to say, i would pay $15 to see this on the IMAX because the thrills, action and emotions running through this movie were as fast as the wolves.Liam Neeson, who everyone is coming to know as the man from Taken, was phenomenal; Liam has always been a great and amazing actor, but this movie really shows that he can do something so "out there" that, it feels real watching it on the big screen.
This movie, fueled by Ridley and Tony Scott's vision (they produced this fine film), has elements from both of the brothers' genre-takes such as Man on Fire, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Blade Runner, capturing the epic, awesome intensity and thrills that only masters can handle.Even though they aren't characters, per say, they are a vital point in this movie and do a damn good job picking up and dragging the tension out (in a good way); the wolves.
If you mistake what happens in films as things "that will never happen to me",well,you'll learn.As The Grey opens on the cold,bleakness Liam Neeson appears as a man that has no dream of life left,no lies,no illusions.The reasons are not apparent.
He is a sniper contracted to protect oil rig workers from infrequent wolf attacks,and shoots only when completely necessary.He respects the animal enough to know its dangers.His fellow humans he has much less admiration for,at least the ones he works with.They are the refuse of the real world,who deserve to be in the harsh conditions that he has chosen to be in.On a routine flight to return to civilization the plane crashes literally in the middle of nowhere.The sound editors and techs did such a fantastic job with this film you feel as close to everything that is possible without actually being there.Real depictions of crash victims-and the cold,the cold is a complete character on it's own.That would be enough to threaten your life.Then you are hit with the real fear.The primal one most of us have forgotten on our long ride at the top of the food chain.
The line between our world of safety and 911 and sanity, and complete all bets are off,nothing will save you but yourself world, is very thin.He finds out in the worst way possible that the plane has crashed in the world of the wolf and they do not belong there.Having some knowledge of the animal, but not much else he scrambles to live and protect what is left of humanity in this unforgiving reality.The survivors try to cope as well as you or I could,and we are along for every terrifyingly tense moment.The Grey is real,raw,scary and so good you will be appreciative of every aspect of your life.Neeson is at his best when thrown against everything that man and nature fears, and it is a film experience.
When, near the end, my favorite character drowned in a particularly frustrating way, I started to feel that the screenwriter simply wanted to depress me.I remain just a little confused about this movie's themes.
(This is despite the fact that I think we see way too little of the wolves; I'm the type of guy who actually wants to "see the monster" and not have all of it left to my imagination.) There's one scene in which one character sees another after falling from a tree that is rendered just beautifully.
Liam Neeson's performance was truly outstanding,and i loved the way that the movie played with the different psychology between humans in the same circumstances..
At least co-writer / director Joe Carnahan (adapting Ian Mackenzie Jeffers' short story "Ghost Walker") filmed this on some genuine wilderness locations and not some studio backlot.Liam Neeson, as rock-solid as he's ever been, is a man named Ottway, whose job it is to keep the local beasts in line and protect the comrades working on an Alaskan oil rig.
They are from hunters who overload their planes with moose or caribou meat or weather related like the recent charter that killed Senator Ted Stevens.I have always thought that Liam Neeson was a very good actor.
Its like The Da Vinci Code reviews all over again - people, we are watching a FILM - a MOVIE, STORY, not a documentary so who cares if it doesn't perfectly portray the behaviour of Wolves...
They are led by Ottway (Liam Neeson) , a two-fisted and resourceful veteran with suicide tendency .They spend most of it running through the snow, and woods, being wounded , pursued and chased by the pack of wolves.The main and support cast are magnificent when struggle to survive in the hostile environment which the flick is set in.
If you are a fan of the main guys Liam Neeson or Dermot Mulroney , you'll want to watch this one.The motion picture produced by Ridley Scott is finely directed and well written by Joe Carnahan (A Team, Smokin' aces , Narc) based on a short story titled ¨Ghost Walker¨ by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers .
The story is centered around Liam Neesons, brilliantly played character, who, troubled by his past, is suicidal before the crash, and then determined to survive afterwards.
When the plane on which he and other employees is travelling crashes, the survivors must not only contend with the cold and threat of starvation, but a pack of marauding wolves intent on protecting their patch.Heavy on the symbolic undertones that motivate Neeson's character, his deceased wife's memory fuelling his ambivalent behaviour and desire to leave the mortal coil, while recurring images of his father and the poem he wrote underscore a conflicted will to survive despite his grief.
Together with Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo and Dallas Roberts (serious contender for John Ritter lookalike), the quartet mount something of a rearguard defence against the wolves, but their path to freedom is anything but assured.Some of the attack scenes are high quality, and the special effects don't diminish the film's integrity like so many recent forays into CGI.
Painted and done up to be a thoughtful movie with some kind of a message, it's just a bad, bad mix of "Call of the wild" and "Alive".A bunch of people survive a plane crash in Alaska and get eaten by wolves.First of all, you didn't get to know the characters.
A bunch of yetis is actually more believable than the notion that wolves would attack men.Aside from the wolves, the decision making on the part of the characters was horribly flawed, to the point of deliberate self destruction, the action scenes were phony and poorly shot, and the physics were unrealistic.COULD have been an 8 or 9 star movie, but as is - is not worth watching..
"The Grey" is a 2012 movie directed by Joe Carnahan and starring Liam Neeson.
We like Liam Neeson and thought that any movie that he did would be good to watch.
I normally like survival movies about people crashing somewhere in the wilderness and making it out alive (ie The Edge), but this one was horrible!!
The writers should have watched National Geographic's Wolves of Yellowstone before creeping everyone out with this nonsense and undoing years of work by wild life conservationists like Shaun Ellis and Jim Dutcher.I don't know where they got their information about Alaska, but it is inconceivable that someone would jump into a river in freezing temperatures and get out and walk around in the snow without dying of hypothermia as portrayed at the end of the movie.The vulgarity was horrible, every seen was either violent or depressing, and their was this backdrop melancholic music that made everything worse.
The totally unrealistic portrayal of wolves is annoying, but not the most annoying thing with this really failed movie.The most annoying thing is that it want's to be some kind of thriller, but the screenplay is so bad written - the plot is so foreseeable ...
You actually see men talking to each other that we could all relate to as opposed to them saying dialogue that would only carry the plot along.The performance by Liam Neeson is a little different from his actions roles like Taken.
Even though this film deals with plane crashes, brutal killings, fights to the deaths, and survival skills, this film also tries to tackle big human subjects that are usually confined to those pictures found at the art house cineplex.Questions about the existence of God, lost loved ones, and deep thinking about the reason for life permeate this movie.Liam Neeson's character is supposed to be the "hero" and the deepest thinker among the group of men that must fend off a vicious pack of wolves.
Introspective analysis comes into play, conversations spin to a higher level, and with Carnahan smartly able to make us feel their isolation, their terror, their conflicts and will to survive; even if that will simply will not suffice, it's very much a picture that gets under your skin and into your brain for all the right reasons.Led by a powerhouse and intense Neeson performance (who better to have on your side in such circumstances?), with Mulroney also excellent, film is perfectly photographed by Takayanagi on location in British Columbia.
The main character (played by Liam Neeson) is great at leading a group of survivors through dangerous situations.Without spoiling the movie, we can say that the story is engaging..
It soon becomes apparent that the plane crash the middle of wolf country and the wolves see him and his men as food or fresh meat needed for their survival.
So many people are saying this whole movie is bad because it isn't realistic or the characters do stupid things, without talking about the stuff that actually matter in film like the script, acting and directing, which are all fantastic.The film is definitely depressing.
¨ Joe Carnahan directed Liam Neeson in 2010 when they worked together in The A-Team, and now they decided to reunite once again in wildlife survivalist movie, The Grey.
If I survived a plane crash and had to fight off a pack of dangerous wolves then I would definitely choose Liam Neeson as my companion.
There aren't a lot of good movies that tend to be released in January or February, and this is definitely above average so by all means see this unless you still have a lot of catching up to do with the late 2011 films.The story focuses on Ottway (Liam Neeson) a hunter who is working for an oil company in the wilderness of Alaska.
The wolves and the cold weather will put these men's surviving skills to the test in the middle of the wilderness.The screenplay was written by director Joe Carnahan along with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers who actually wrote the short story that this film was based on: Ghost Walker.
Here's the issue with "The Grey"—either you buy into the idea that this movie is in fact more than just a poorly executed tale of wilderness survival, that it is actually an existential consideration of the human condition and the significance we must extract from our struggle to defeat the absurd obstacles life throws in our way.I don't buy it.Perhaps it's the choice of the villain in this film.
I went with to this on "girls night away from the Superbowl crazed boys" night.I admit up front: I had seen the previews, and had not planned to see this film.Nonetheless, the consensus of the group was that Liam Neeson is a very good actor who makes interesting choices, and we all liked his work.
I am a huge Liam Neeson fan, it would take something really big to make me not like him....and this movie almost did it.
The Grey is a survival-action movie focusing on the story of a group of plane crash survivors in the middle of an Alaskan wasteland.
They also happen to put quite a bit of the wolf attacks in the middle of dramatic character scenes, somewhat robbing the emotion of the moment just so they can remind the audience that there are wolves in this movie.The actors do a fine job representing their characters for what they are.
You can't take away from anyone here, though Liam Neeson's Ottway being the main character is the show stealer, all the other men maintain a presence even when it does feel like there are too many of them immediately after the crash.In fact, I would say that the main detractors for this movie are rather prevalent even in the trailer.
Unfortunately this is not a memorable Liam Neeson movie that will stick in your head for ever (Like Taken).
I have really enjoyed Liam Neeson's work lately, and I'm surprised he would sign on, and do such a poor job on this film.There was one redeeming quality of this movie which was the exciting plane crash scene, but other than that this movie was a total waste of 2 hours, avoid it like the plague..
i watched it last night with 6 people from different ages in the end of the awful movie we all agreed it is bad ending with opened end .i mean even the wolfs u can feel they are toys.the time line of the movie is predictable.and the end killed us.and the thing with god all mighty how they dare to talk to him like this.he curse him and say help you ***** how they agree for this.they should be ashamed and especially the "Liam Neeson".i liked this actor and now i am not..
If you want to know what real wolves act like, read Farley Mowat.I didn't have time to try and enjoy this movie as art because every few moments My reason was assaulted with totally contrived, totally unrealistic plot elements.
****Spoiler Alert*** The frequent flashbacks in the beginning of the movie almost ended it before the main event, and continue to annoy me throughout.I could live with it, but the writers have absolutely no clue about wolves, and attribute behaviours to them which are simply not found anywhere in the world.I had to turn the film off, though when Liam Neeson finds his rifle in the wreckage; the butt stock is broken, so he throws it away.