Cinema review: The grey

A group of oil workers get stranded in the middle of Alaska after a plane crash. It’s the middle of the winter and a pack of wolves approaches.

It’s difficult for a movie to get grittier than this one. I’m not saying this as a critic; it’s just a word of advice about what you are going to see if you rent this one out.

The tone goes from somber to downbeat all the way to flat out depressing. The total lack of any positive feelings is the biggest flaw of the movie.

On the other hand after watching the movie I can understand why they structured it this way. It kinda works both stylistically and thematically. This is only apparently a movie about survival, in reality this is a movie about acceptance.

Joe Carnahan after his terrible movie version of the A team redeems himself here. He is on both writing and directing duties and clearly excels on every front.

The plane crash at the beginning is a masterpiece, probably the best plane crash ever in movies, to get more impressive and realistic you just have to do it for real. The rest of the movie is up to par with beautiful locations and impressive set pieces that really convey a side of nature that we often forget.

Liam Neeson continues his impressive strings of action roles with another impressive performance. The excellent script of course is helping him but nonetheless is not easy to convey so much by saying so little.

We can nitpick on the diabolical and certainly not realistic depiction of the Grey Wolves but in the end is not that important. This is a movie and here the wolves represent the primal, inevitable forces of nature.

This is a very good, and very depressing, movie. Recommended for all the lovers of good cinema, just get a couple of episodes of your favorite sit com to lift you up afterward.