The Grey (Joe Carnahan) ***

The TV ads for The Grey promise an action thriller where Liam Neeson puts on his macho act and faces off against wolves. It was undoubtedly a good marketing campaign as The Grey rocketed out to #1 this past weekend with a $19 million haul. However, those that were going to see a mindless man vs. action film were likely to be disappointed. While The Grey does feature some visceral action moments, the heart of the film is about a guy meditating on life and survival, with wolves just one of several impediments. The end result is a movie far better than the trailers suggest, but perhaps confounding to certain audiences who were expecting something different.

The Grey follows a group of oil drillers who work in a remote region of Alaska. On a trip back home, a plane crash leaves most of them dead, stranding the few survivors in the middle of nowhere during a pretty brutal storm. Surviving the elements is bad enough, but they've also found themselves encroaching on the territory of a pack of wolves. A series of wolf attacks makes them realize they cannot stay in the same location waiting to be rescued. Amidst chaos, confusion, and controversy, a man named Ottway (Neeson) takes leadership of the group as they attempt to make a run for safety.

Wolf attacks aren't as frequent as the trailer might suggest. Much of the film is made up of the group pondering their existence, thinking about those they've left behind for such a dangerous job. Neeson in particular has a pretty powerful arc as a man who at one point was dealing with thoughts of suicide, but now wants nothing more than to survive. In this sense, The Grey actually has as much in common with Cast Away as it does your standard wilderness suspense thriller. It's certainly not as good as that near masterpiece, but the thoughtful way they explore the existence of the characters is unexpected and very refreshing.

This isn't to say that The Grey reneges on delivering the action goods. The plane crash sequence is expertly done, with director Joe Carnahan not showing any exterior shots of the plane (also reminiscent of Cast Away), thus creating a "you are there" effect for the audience. There is a terrifying scene where the group attempts to cross over a massive valley via a rope precariously attached to the tree. Sure, that type of scene is a cliche in wilderness stories, but the execution is spot on here. And the nighttime attacks by the wolves (where you can only see their eyes) are suitably frightening.

One major drawback are the all too frequent flashback moments that give us glimpses of Ottway's wife. So much of the film does a good job of building up a palpable sense of dread based on the hopeless predicament the survivors find themselves in, but it really loses all of that whenever they cut away from the immediate scene. It would've been more effective to confine all of these moments to normal dialogue and indeed that is where the best character moments come from.

Liam Neeson is the star attraction and he's perfectly cast here. He has the charisma to emerge as the leader, plus the range and skill to show the emotional turmoil his character is experiencing. If anything, the film focuses a bit too heavily on him as the other characters don't really get developed enough for us to care about them as much as we do Ottway. Despite that, Carnahan has done an admirable job with the material, providing the audience with good thrill sequences, but never sacrificing the strong development of the main character's psychological state.