FIRST OFF鈥擸EAH, it鈥檚 weird that Liam Neeson, who lost his wife, Natasha Richardson, to a ski accident in 2009, would elect to star in a movie as a man devastated by the loss of the woman he loves. In fairness, though, , a big-budget, Hollywood-does-Wrangell wilderness-survival epic that opens this month, is no meditation on life imitating art imitating mourning. His character鈥檚 grief is there for the same reason it is in a vintage Mel Gibson action flick: to establish our anti-hero鈥檚 state of desperate cunning. The greater mystery is why Neeson bit on co-writer and director Joe Carnahan鈥檚 script, a mashup of monster movie, psychodrama, and mawkish bromance.
Neeson plays Ottway, a sharpshooting wolf exterminator for a drilling operation somewhere above the Arctic Circle. In voiceover, Ottway tells us that the remote outpost attracts 鈥渙utcasts, rejects, convicts, assholes鈥攎en unfit for mankind.鈥 Strap in, folks, for a subzero ! When their flight back to Anchorage crashes, seven of these hard-luck bastards are left to fight for their lives in the backcountry, besieged by a pack of royally pissed-off gray wolves鈥攖he only animal, we鈥檙e advised, 鈥渢hat will seek revenge.鈥 Next morning, we鈥檙e down to six.
From here the action takes a turn for the preposterous. We鈥檙e not just talking standard moviemaking concessions like hoods down and coats blowing open in a minus-50-degree gale (so we can see the actors better). We鈥檙e talking hand-to-hand combat with animatronic wolves that behave less like canines than like frenzied barracuda. We鈥檙e talking uncalled-for stunts like a running leap off a cliff when a simple rappel would suffice.
This sort of thing鈥攄emonized wildlife, 鈥style acrobatics鈥攃an be entertaining, of course, as long as no one takes himself too seriously. If only. Carnahan (, ) seems determined to prove that he鈥檚 deep, and he鈥檚 anxious that you not miss any of that depth. Carnahan has one ex-con yell at the wolves, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not the animals, we鈥檙e the animals!鈥 This same dude, as he dies, is revealed to have NO MAS tattooed on his neck. No, really. And his demise follows an exchange in which the men, tearing up, share their first names for the first time鈥攁 scene, you think, that must have been workshopped at America鈥檚 last Iron John retreat.
If any of this is a shame, it鈥檚 because cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi鈥檚 haunting Alaskan wilderness (actually Smithers, British Columbia) hints at a version of The Grey that could have been a fraction as violent and twice as frightening, and because Neeson, despite it all, turns in a first-rate performance. The Irishman鈥檚 face was pained long before his family tragedy, and it鈥檚 ideally suited to Ottway鈥檚 predicament. Neeson even manages to remain convincing as he recites, for the third or fourth time, a poem attributed to Ottway鈥檚 dad, an eighth-grader鈥檚 parody of the Bard鈥檚 King Henry V: 鈥淥nce more into the fray.鈥 To live and die this day.鈥