Arts & Entertainment
'The Grey' Is Gritty, Good and Packs a Big Bite
A group of men stranded in the wilderness get hunted down by a pack of wolves. It's primal, it's primitive... it's Grey.
Liam Neeson and a bunch of roughneck oil riggers go down in a plane crash in the frozen Alaska wilderness in The Grey.
Neeson plays John Ottway, a loner and the alpha dog of sorts among the surviving men of the crash. They are forced to stay together to battle the elements and a pack of wolves set on making them the next meal. A supporting cast includes Dallas Roberts as the smart sensitive guy, Dermot Mulroney as the sad dad missing his kid and Frank Grillo as the Latino hothead. They face frostbite, wolf bite, drowning and falling from great heights. Harsh outcomes for both man and beast.
In the middle of this life-and-death situation there's time for conversation among the men. We get to know their back story and learn that they are not simply a group of victims. Neeson's Ottway character is of course the most complex. On the brink of suicide just before the crash he now clings fiercely to life.
The Grey is a delightful surprise. Director and writer Joe Carnahan does a good job of not tipping his hand about who's living and who's dying. The wolves were, at times, a bit over the top with the computer-generated-imagery look, but, overall, not a bad film.
So the flick-o-meter gives The Grey three out of five.
It's a decent adventure tale. It seemed to me to be a bit too digitally enhanced. A CGI snowstorm is OK but giant, hulking CGI wolves? Not so much.
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DINNER SELECTION
We stopped by in Toco Hills Promenade yesterday for lunch. Pretty fantastic. We had the pad thai, which is pretty much the General Tso's Chicken of Thai food. After dinner, it's just a short jaunt to . Check showtimes here.