Predator With Less Humour

The trailer for The Grey leads us to think that having already saved his daughter, his identity and the Jews, Liam Neeson was ready to take on predatory animals. Indeed, the over comical punch to the wolf in the trailer, a scene actually removed in the final edit, hints at a ‘Jaws in Snow’ and nothing deeper. In fact, substitute the wolf for a zenomorph, Predator or Leatherface then we are comfortable in what return we are going to get on the ticket price. Think Michael Myers in wolf’s clothing.

Of course these types of movies are enjoyable to an extent but the only variables in these films are the attacker, hero and environment. We know that the people will die in extraneous ways and we wait until the end to see how the ‘baddy’ gets taken out and whether there will be a killer pun attributed. In fact, the film does dare to delve deeper. There are perhaps two main themes that pertain throughout. The problem is that the director fails to fully commit to one or chooses to focus on both thus diluting the point of making the film.

One theme could be an examination on whether in fact the ‘heroes’ are in fact already dead and we are instead subjected into their Dantesque struggle and absolution in purgatory. The concepts of death as a foregone conclusion are explored with Neeson’s calm and resigned flashbacks and visions of both his wife and his father.  Additional evidence is supported by the fact that the film is  based on an Ian MacKenzie Jeffers’ book ‘Ghost Walker’. The plots are more or less identical, but the novel title makes no bones about the role of Neeson's Ottway.

We could draw comparisons between NBC’s Lost and The Grey in that all characters seem to be resurrected after a horrific plane crash beyond comprehension. In one similarity, they are subjected to maniacal monsters that defy reason. Additionally they are affected by primal socio problems that further unsettle the group dynamic. Lost had the smoke monster and other implausible demons and The Grey has apparitional wolves intent on death. In fact, the poor CGI on the wolves make us only hope that they are designed to be more spectral than sincere.  Only in our wildest nightmares could such creatures exist. The group attempt to escape to freedom, to only find further death and despair and at the end futility. I am reminded of The Poseidon Adventure where the Poseidon is flipped upside down and the survivors have to climb, avoiding death at every turn, from a fiery pit to the surface and freedom.

Ottway admits that he does not believe in God and one could see this film as the context for those who reject God to remain in perpetual purgatory and only once faced with death do they accept God and slip away to rest in peace. The longer the renouncement, the more gruelling the trials and tribulations. As soon as Neeson asks for God’s help, he imminently meets his ambiguous end.  

Secondly, and much more likely or at least more prominent, is the theme of instinct and survival. The opening of the film has Liam Neeson with a gun in his mouth intending to commit suicide but an ominous wolf howl distracts him and the gun fails to fire.  Before he has to fight for survival he had already been preparing for death. After the plane crash, the human ‘pack’ is thrown deep into the den and unwillingly pit themselves against territorial wolves. Note that these aren't invasive adversaries like the zenomorph in Alien, Predator or the shark in Jaws. They are behaving as nature would intend, aggressively protecting their den against all foes.  We see the wolves attack the weak and operate as a team, reminiscent of the scariest characeristics of Jurassic Park’s velociraptors. It is nature versus nature in nature within its rawest form. While human aspects of fear, mistrust and logic threaten to tear apart the ever dwindeling survivors, the wolves endure on and continue to operate as a collective killing machine. Instincts begin to take over and Neeson descends into the basest form of human with the final denouement . Growling, spitting and effervescent he takes on the alpha with the resonance of his humanity distinguished and he operates on instinct. The repetition of the poem  associated with his father becomes more appropriate and compelling as the film wears on:

‘Once more into the fray..

Into the last good fight I’ll ever know.

Live and die on this day..

Live and die on this day..’

The Grey attempts to break convention in a conventional story line. We aren’t given time to relate to the characters but we aren’t intended to. We are subjected to super human wills to survive  amidst painful impending death and once more it is so far removed from reality it is that we can barely relate to their situation. What slightly spoils the film is the feeling that there was more intended to the film than what is delivered. The theme of Dante’s Divine Comedy holding the narrative together is too weak to be commended but too strong to be dismissed as speculation. There are two great ideas that could elevate The Grey but neither are fully committed to by the director to make us resolutely sign this off as something different to ‘Alien in Alaska’.