Ironically on the day of the screening I attended, the Wall Street Journal noted that the most recent study of airline efficiency cited Alaska Airlines is a winner in many categories. The folks taking a plane from their oil rig work site to Anchorage (actually filmed beautifully by Masanobu Takayangi) had the bad luck to crash. Still, there is no indication that they were taking Alaska Airlines particularly since it was filmed in the Canadian Rockies around Vancouver.
THE GREY, REVIEW
Open Road Films
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey Karten
Grade: B Director: Joe Carnahan Screenwriter: Joe Carnahan, Ian Mackenzie Jeffers Cast: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale, Joe Anderson Screened at: Dolby 24, NYC, 1/5/12 Opens: January 27, 2012
"The Grey" is a horror tale, a character study making good use of ensemble acting, and a travelogue all taking place in a remote region that had probably not seen a human being for months, nor did any airline pass by during the time that the handful of survivors of a plane crash attempt to make it back to their wives, their girlfriends, or their kids. While nobody in the group gives as much as a thought to eating one another--and for that matter the wolves that attacked them seemed simply to be defending their territory since they made no attempt to make nutritive value of these fellows--there is nothing particularly original thematically. Instead we in the audience are asked to consider how we would cope with fellow survivors if we were caught in an area surrounded by wolf dens with blizzards threatening to put out the fires that were started in an attempt to avoid freezing to death and to keep the lycan-like creatures away.
Liam Neeson stars John Ottway as the putative leader of the group, the guy who at first is resented for his knowledge of the ways of the wolves. Much of the time that he is working on the rig--we actually see him at night as the men entertain themselves by brawling, which is a way of foreshadowing how they will act after the crash--he dreams of his wife or girlfriend, tender with him in bed but ultimately succumbing to a dread disease. He appears to feel guilty for leaving her behind.
Ottway tries to get the group of survivors to work together and to relinquish they macho postures. One fellow insists that he is not scared, never scared, to which Ottway replies that he is "terrified." One by one the survivors are killed, by wolves, drowning, falling, heart attack, knee injury making walking impossible.
This is a film to watch not so much because of the predictable story but because of the scenery and performances by Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale, Joe Anderson and Nonso Anozie. It's a testosterone flick, the only women being the hostess on the doomed airliner and the love of Ottway's life seen in flashbacks.
Beautiful rainy weather this week should kick the winter trout fishing up a notch or two, but an expected high pressure system this weekend could change things. That's the ups-and-downs of winter fishing in Arizona. I guess another front is due on Sunday or Monday, so we'll have to see what happens. ...
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Blockbuster, Eastman Kodak, and Borders - what do they all have in common? All these business giants failed, but why? Like many analysts, you could come up with a number of logical reasons for their plight - they did not create new products that kept them competitive, failed to embrace the power o ...
It's such a cliche that I hesitate to use it but with some documentaries, truth is stranger than fiction. Who would believe that the guy shown in the opening scene of Don Argott and Demian Fento's "Last Days Here"--in his fifties with gray hair, a pock-marked face, scabs all over his body from pick ...
On January 14, Stand Up And Stand Proud.org., in cooperation with the Mesa Marketplace Swap Meet, the Mesa Police Department, the Apache Junction Police Department, The Mining Camp Restaurant and Trading Post, and Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction will have completed their Third Annual ...
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THE GREY, REVIEW
