The Grey

The Grey is not a good movie. It is, however, a decent movie. At least up until the ending in which the film gets completely and utterly destroyed. Any bit of goodwill the movie earned from me was completely wasted in those final moments. But more about that in a minute (and, yes, I will be spoiling the ending for you so SPOILER WARNING).

The Grey stars Liam Neeson in what has no become his go-to role: a better than it has to be late January/early February movie in which he proves himself to be a badass and saves people from dangerous people/things (see also: Taken, Unknown). In The Grey, he's a marksman stationed way up North, as North as you can probably go. His job is to kill wolves so they don't get into the drilling center and attack the other workers. It's dark and cold and all the while he has flashbacks to a sun drenched bed and his former lover. He is miserable now, contemplating suicide, so when it's time to go home, he is as excited as Liam Neeson in this kind of movie can be. But then, there is a terrible plane crash into a vast arctic nothingness complete with just lots and lots of snow (at least when the plane crashed on Lost, they got stranded on a hot, tropical, albeit creepy, island). The few survivors of the plane crash (including Dermot Mulroney!) team up to try to survive in the wilderness. Their goal is to build a fire and find food, make it through the first night and then head South hoping someone will save them sooner or later. But then the wolves strike. And apparently wolves are revenge driven animals because when the men fight back, it only makes them more and more angry and they begin to hunt them wherever they run. And so the movie is these men (their numbers dwindling - there were 7, then 6, then 5, then...) trying to outsmart and outrun a pack of wolves, struggling against the bitter cold and blizzards of mother nature.

And it's not so bad. I mean, sure it's way too quiet to be a thriller and has far too much blood and guts to be a thoughtful character piece. The Grey doesn't know what the hell kind of movie it wants to be. And to a certain extent, that's fine. The action, the philosophical discussions, the tender moving moments, Liam Neeson's fantastic performance - these all add up to a pretty decent movie. Not good, not by a long shot, but at least good enough so that it's worth watching. It keeps your interest and entertains you. And then... the end.

SPOILER ALERT!!! So, I was with this movie until the end. I really was. I was giving it the benefit of the doubt. I really was trying to like it. But then this happened... Remember that moment in the trailer? Of course you do, they only showed the trailer approximately 3 million times in the last month. The part where Liam Neeson is ready to face off with a giant scary wolf. He grabs some of those miniature bottles of liquor from planes and tapes them between his knuckles, smashing the ends into jagged pieces of glass. That's the part that made me want to see the movie. Liam Neeson in some sort of epic showdown with wolves in the wilderness? Hell yeah. Well, guess what? That's how it ends. With that single moment. There is no impending fight. There is no epic showdown. It ends and we are supposed to guess what happens. Well, there's a pack of wolves staring him down so there's really no guessing necessary. Now, for the record, I love ambiguous endings to movies. I love movies that leave you hanging. And I didn't feel it necessary to see Liam Neeson ripped to shreds. However, this was the single moment from the preview that probably made people excited for this movie. You've got to show us SOMETHING. Show us at least a minute of this epic showdown. At least a taste of the fight. Then cut to black. At least give the audience some satisfaction after we've successfully sat through a boring movie that was 20 minutes too long. But no, this rotten, terrible ending completely and totally destroys this movie. It's quite possibly the worst ending I've seen in recent memory. What a waste of time.

Grade: D