The Grey
Liam Neeson is one of my favorite actors and has been for
since I saw him in a memorable part in a very unmemorable movie “Next of
Kin”. Neeson played Patrick Swayze’s
redneck brother, working separately from him to find out who killed their other
brother. I could not stop watching him
and his character was so much more interesting to me than Swayze’s, who was the lead. Later when I found out he was Irish I was
very surprised.
During the 80s and early 90s Neeson was a solid performer in supporting parts in good films, such as The Bounty and
The Mission. He played a clever Nazi in
a film I liked, though many others did not, called Shining Through. Neeson always has a lot of presence and his
characters usually have a strong sense of dignity. When Spielberg cast him as the lead in
Schindler’s List, I knew this would be a memorable role and it was.
After the incredible success of Schindler’s List Neeson
played the lead in films for a few years, such as Kinsey, Nell (which I liked
for the three lead performances, not so much for the kind of hokey story), Rob
Roy (which is my favorite Neeson film), and Before and After.
When Star Wars The Phantom Menace was released Neeson was
the best thing about that very uneven film.
Casting Neeson as a Jedi was a brilliant move as he has the proper grace
and presence for that type of role and he was able to rise above (figuratively
and literally) Lucas’ wooden direction and dialogue. Neeson faced off well with Harrison Ford in
K19 and had a complex performance as Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman Begins. I also really liked the Western he made with
Pierce Brosnan, Seraphim
Falls. He played the less showy part but was
the more interesting character.
When Taken was released in 2009, a well made action thriller
that made perfect use of Neeson’s dramatic presence, wits, intimidating
physique, and age (he was about 55 when he made it though he looks about 10
years younger on screen) he started playing more lead roles. When the A-Team was in pre-production as a
fan of the 80s show I knew the key role was Hannibal Smith and was curious who
would get it. It calls for a very clever
man in his fifties who is a vet, has a light touch but can handle himself in a
gun or fistfight and loves to chew on his cigar. When Neeson was cast I knew the role was in
good hands. Neeson had a terrific cameo
in The Next Three Days and played the lead in Unknown, a thriller reminiscent
of the Bourne Identity.
Joe Carnahan, the director of the A Team, and Neeson reteamed
for The Grey. On the surface this is a
pretty simple story. Neeson plays John Ottway, a sniper
for an oil drilling outpost in rural Alaska
whose job is to keep the drillers safe from wolves. He has recently lost his wife and is suicidal
and keeps having memories and fantasies of her.
This sadly has a real life parallel as Neeson’s wife, Natasha
Richardson, died suddenly in 2009 after a head injury sustained after falling
while skiing.
Ottway one night plans to shoot himself but after putting the barrel of
his sniper rifle into his mouth he hears a wolf howl and stops, presumably
because he knows that his job keeps the members of the team alive. He has a very weathered face
and seems to stands above all the men he works with but also apart from them,
in part because his role is so different.
I imagine that he may be a war veteran.
Due to his job he has a pretty strong knowledge of wolf behavior. When he shoots one at the beginning of the
film he seems to coach it through its death. Admittedly, Neeson’s recent characterizations
in Taken and Unknown cannot help but spillover into the impression he makes in
this role so the audience goes into the film with a preconception of how
capable he probably is.
At one point, soon afterwards, the team is on a plane to Anchorage which crashes
while flying through a snowstorm. The
sequence, similar to the crash scene in Cast Away, only shows what is happening
from inside the plane. Ottway, after securing himself by lying
across two seats and using the seat belt from both seats, deals with his fear
by imagining himself with his wife. As
the crash takes place onscreen the audience sees Ottway ripped away from her
and suddenly appears in the middle of the snow.
The image is striking; Ottway looks all alone in this
extremely white and desolate area. The
viewer can almost feel the biting winds.
Ottway discovers only a
few other men have survived, out of about forty that were onboard. Ottway talks one of them who is badly hurt,
played by James Badge Dale, through the next few minutes and helps him die
peacefully, like he did with the wolf. Ottway
tells him to imagine a vision of a person he loves as he dies.
Ottway and the men soon realize, in a haunting shot that
there are several wolves around them. The
men are standing together and see a couple of wolves and then the eyes light up
of each of the wolves in the area.
Ottway encourages the men to stare back at them and with the fire they
are able to avert an attack for the time being.
He mentions the wolves may
go by if they are just passing through.
But he says if they have landed in their territory then their urge will
be to defend it.
From this point I assumed the film would become a survivor
drama with the wolves representing some of the challenge of the
environment. I imagined that some men
would eventually survive and some would not and as a viewer I would try to
guess which ones would and how they might exit this situation. However, (spoiler alert) the film has a
different agenda which I found much more satisfying.
Frank Grillo, who I just saw give a very different performance
in Warrior, plays Diaz, who is initially the nastiest of the
survivors. He tries to steal some of the
valuables of the deceased and is antagonistic.
Dermot Mulroney, who I did not recognize until over an hour into the
film due in part to his heavy glasses, plays Talget. He is more of a family man than the
others. Dallas Roberts plays Hendricks,
one of the other men, probably the most humane of them all.
From this point there are a lot of spoilers since I
summarize what I like most about the film. I would suggest avoiding reading the rest
until you have seen the film.
The men leave with the intention of exiting the den and walk
in an open area through the heavy snow but then in a chilling scene three of
the wolves attack one of the men who falls behind. The wolves have clearly taken the strategy of
picking off one at a time rather than try to fight all the men at once, which
is typical of how they hunt their game. Ottway
tries to get back to him but the snow is too deep and his steps take too long. The point of view is chilling as we hear the
screams and see the blood on the snow but not the details of the attack.
The men eventually make camp in an area where they cannot be
surrounded and they have an interesting conversation about faith and fate. Hendrick and Talget and another man named
Burke all believe in God and Diaz and Ottway do not. Diaz seems not to just due to his
nature. Ottway may have become an
atheist due to the ugliness he has seen in his life, which may have culminated
in the loss of his wife, the one lovely piece that he could cling to. He does mention his difficult relationship
with his father but that he wrote a poem about fighting that inspires him.
Despite his earlier suicidal tendencies Ottway now fights
hard to survive, I believe since he feels he is the protector of the men
(especially apparent when he tries to run back to save the one who had fallen
behind). He may also see himself as a
father figure to them since he is much older and experienced than they
are. Bradley Cooper originally was going
to play Ottway and the dynamic between him and the other men would have been
much different. Neeson’s grizzled
character fits much better.
Late in the film only Ottway, Hendricks and Diaz are left
and are walking near a river and Diaz, who has been gradually softening since
facing off with Ottway, stops and says he cannot go on. He injured his knee earlier and the pain, the
cold, the exhaustion and the hopelessness of their situation has finally
drained him of the fight. There has been
absolutely no sign of rescue. They would
still have a long way to go to civilization and need to continue to somehow
fight off the wolf attacks. I think
seeing so many of the other men killed has affected him greatly as well. This is an unexpectedly powerful scene that
lasts for a few minutes as Hendricks in particular tries to talk him out of
it.
In the end Diaz sits down on a log and the other two go
on. Diaz knows he probably is not going
to die of starvation, nor of the cold but instead of a wolf attack, which is a
pretty horrible way to go. He might have
been better off if he had simply gone into the nearby river and let himself
freeze to death, a much less painful death.
Sure enough, as soon as the men are gone the camera stays on him from
behind and the wolves are heard approaching. Diaz starts psyching telling
himself to “Don’t be afraid”. I was glad
that Carnahan did not show his death, sparing us an ugly scene and also
allowing the character to exit with dignity.
The scene also emphasizes that the wolves are stalking the
men and will continue to take advantage anytime one of them offers himself as
an easy prey. At this point I realized
that I had no idea how this film was going to end but it was only getting
darker.
Ottway and Hendricks continue down the river and a couple of
wolves appear and the two men try to run and Hendricks falls into the rushing
river. This scene is disturbing as the
idea of a man in a river in that cold with the threat of the wolves nearby is
almost too intense. Hendricks gets his
foot caught in a rock underwater and Ottway jumps into the river and
desperately tries to pull him out but Hendricks eventually drowns, since he is
yelling underwater, thus letting water into his lungs. Ottway may actually cause him to have a more
painful death by trying to yank him out instead of swimming underwater and
dislodging the foot there.
The scene is undermined a little bit since once Hendricks
falls into the water the wolves no longer appear. There may be a cut somewhere
explaining it but I found it unlikely that the men either outran them or that
they simply gave up the chase, especially since Ottway was still outside the
river for another moment or two and would have offered a valuable target for
them. It may have worked better if
Hendricks had suddenly fallen into the river because the snow near the edge
could not handle his weight.
After Ottway comes out of the river, his chances
of survival are very slim. He now has
wet clothes which he would have to remove to have any chance of surviving in
the freezing temperature and staying in one place and exposed to the
wolves. He is now completely lost and starts yelling at God in part because he
now has no one else to talk to.
Ottway removes his wet coat and continues through the woods becoming
weaker. He gradually stops, probably
affected by hypothermia and like Diaz is ready to acknowledge that he has no
chance. He puts the wallets of his men in a pile in the snow as a sort of memorial. The wolves surround him and Ottway recognizes that he must have
inadvertently entered their den. The
dark furred alpha wolf approaches and the other members of the pack back away. The alpha wolf has decided to face the alpha
male of the group of men. Ottway, as he
is facing death, sees his wife who is revealed to have died in a hospital. Then the alpha wolf starts approaching. Ottway, reciting his father’s poem, decides
to go down fighting and he tapes a knife to his knuckles and breaks little
bottles of some alcohol and tapes the sharp edges to the knuckles of his other hand. The screen goes dark as Ottway and the wolf
charge each other.
For anyone who stays through the credits there is a quick
shot afterwards, clearly after the fight, of the wolf lying down breathing hard in much the way the
wolf Ottway killed at the beginning of the film did right before he died. Ottway’s head is seen from behind lying
against the wolf’s body. To me the
implication is that the two killed each other and bonded through
the purity of the struggle, since they died lying against each other.
I think the ending is perfect. I did not want to see a savage battle between
Ottway and the wolf and again Carnahan makes the correct choice to let the
character die with dignity. It is a bold
ending, true to the story and the characters.
The marketing of the film showed the final shot of Ottway
charging the wolf repeatedly which did the film a disservice. Not only did we not see the fight but it
tried to sell the film as something other than what it was. There are wolf attacks throughout the film
but the story is about how the men confront a difficult situation in different
ways. It is not a B horror film about Liam
Neeson killing angry wolves.
Some people have complained that the wolves are portrayed as
bloodthirsty monsters. I do not know
much about wolves, but my understanding is that they generally do not want to
have much to do with humans. Dogs
however, are very territorial and I have seen calm dogs become suddenly very
aggressive when threatened. The wolves
would see this invasion on their territory a threat and I can believe they
would want to remove it.
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