"The Grey" Review

    In this film, Lian Neeson fights wolves with his bare hands! This is The Grey!

    Calling The Grey a "Man's Movie" is, while understandable, a mistake. While a movie where Liam Neeson punches wolves in the face sounds remarkable like a manly movie made for manly men where other manly men do manly things in manly ways, that's just one side of The Grey. The film follows Ottway (Liam Neeson). Ottway's job is to kill any and all wolves that threaten oil riggers while they are working up in Alaska. Unfortunately for the riggers, Ottway can't protect them when their plane crashes not just in the middle of the desolate Alaskan wilderness, but right into the middle of a wolves' den.
    As the group of survivors are forced to flee, and of course killed one by one, The Grey starts to reveal it's true colors. The Grey is just as much a drama human life and the will to survive as much as it is a survival man's dream film. As any good movie does, the characters are slowly built up and much is revealed about them as the run from the fearsome pack of wolves. In between the moments of wolf attacks and survivors' deaths, the group of men reflect on life. The film tackles some surprisingly rough topics and handles them well.

Yes. This happens.

    The film discusses suicide as well as religion. How could God knowingly crash these survivors in with a pack of killer wolves? Why doesn't he offer them any kind of support? Does God even exist now? These are asked in a movie where Liam Neeson punches a wolf in the face. And it works. While you may not remember exactly their names, you grow to care about all of the characters (Even the douchey one) and what to see them make it home to their families.
    And that's about as much as I will say. Seriously. There is a whole lot more worth talking about in this movie. Unfortunately, doing that would spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. If there is one last thing I want to say, it's this: Ignore everything you hear about the ending. Yes, the ending is not what you'd expect and maybe even a little anti-climatic. And it's perfect. It may very well be one of the best endings to a film I've seen this year so far. Those people complaining about it are missing the point.

You'll see this picture if you look up "Bad-ass" in
your dictionary. Also, "Bad-ass" probably isn't
in your dictionary.

    The Grey, despite being released in January, is one of the best films of the year so far. Not only is the film extremely bad-ass and intense, it also has a surprising amount of character development and deep themes. The Grey will not only leave you on the edge of your seat, but it will also leave you thinking afterwards. The Grey gets 5 and a half stars out of 6.