The Grey

Director: Joe Carnahan

27 December 2023

See

Him: Liam Neeson in a role unlike any of his other action movies. In this he plays Ottway, part of an Alaskan oil crew whose plane crashes on the way to Anchorage. The survivors find themselves stranded in the tundra, preyed upon by a pack of wolves.

Think

Him: What starts out as a survival story, unlike Castaway, or Into the Wild, becomes a meditation on masculinity. Why men like Talget (Dermot Mulroney) want to survive, to see his daughter again, come across tenderly in fireside conversations. The contemplative moments between the action scenes where the men are killed off one by one. Diaz (Frank Grillo) or how Ottway talks to Lewenden (James Badge Dale) as he dies.

Feel

Him: Together with Marc Streitenfeld’s score, particularly the motif of minimal strings resonates along with Ottway’s repeated exposition. Remembering his father’s poem, or flashback of his wife, along with the music, is the best balancing of a physical and emotion journey I’ve felt in a blockbuster. The scenery is severely beautiful, but the sepia hue of memory of father and son my favourite part.