Frank Grillo plays the foul mouthed tough guy Diaz in a way that makes you hate him one minute and sympathize with him the next. The other actors are actually quite good as well, even if none of them hold a candle to Neeson. If he wants you to listen, you listen and if he wants you to panic, your heart will be racing. Part of what made Taken, and to a lesser extent Unknown, such good films is that Neeson can make a situation as tense and fast paced or as slow and methodical as it need be. Pacing is one thing Neeson has in spades. Neeson gets a ton of great lines throughout the film and is always moving the story along at a really great pace. While most of the dialogue is Joe Carnahan's saltiness at it's best (they throw around the F word like it's nothing) there are a lot of really deep and thoughtful conversations that come off like real people talking about their humanity instead of actors playing a role.

The story is a simple survival/long trek story but is littered with brilliance throughout. Now they must find a way out, or at least a way back to safety without getting eaten by the wolves. Not because they don't like humans, but because they are protecting their turf, and these humans are intruders. They are low on food and supplies, dead bodies are everywhere and worst of all, there are really pissed off wolves who want them dead. The film follows Ottway and a small group of survivors after their plane goes down in the middle of the arctic tundra. That latter part of the sentence is true though as I doubt I'll forget this film any time soon. Think The Edge, but replace the bear with wolves. The film is less an action film, more than a survival horror with a surprisingly deep philosophical element as man faces nature in a battle to the death. Well that is not the case, or at least the former part of this sentence. Marketed as 'Taken with Wolves' this film promised to be an action packed, wolf-punching-with-broken-bottles experience that we'd never forgot. This is the start to The Grey, the newest film from Smokin Aces director Joe Carnahan (who also co-wrote the film). The defeat in Ottway's voice is enough to show you that things can only go down from here.

It's dreary, depressing and leaves a pit in your stomach, and that's before the story even really gets going. Very quickly this film lets you know that this isn't going to be a happy picture. He does this in the form of a letter to his wife which he knows he'll never actually send. A man named Ottway, played by the always fantastic Liam Neeson, then starts narrating about life, work and the futility of everything now that his wife is gone. Hello I am the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.Ī howling wind can be heard in the background as a simple title card with two words pops up: 'The Grey.' Whether that's a testament to the men involved in this picture or the arctic tundra itself is up to the viewer.

Into the fray the grey