[Locke]

Just rewatched The Grey on Bluray:

I know I usually come down on film grain in HD releases as it just doesn't look very good but I'd say The Grey does it better than most, since it rarely intrudes into the gorgeous cinematography. In particularly busy sequences The Grey looks as garbage as I've come to expect from these kinds of Bluray transfers but in quieter sequences it adds a certain harshness to the already harsh conditions, and you can eventually forget about it all together as it does blend into the diegesis well. I'd still always take a clean, crisp finish when it comes to a HD transfer over noisy, grainy pictures but The Grey really doesn't look too bad overall.

Given what has happened to Neeson over the years with his own wife you can tell he's bringing a lot of stuff from deep inside to Ottway while really losing himself in the character. Neeson seems to divide people a lot but I wouldn't believe you if you questioned his talent after watching this, I think this is one of my most favourite performances of all time. Ottway proves a complex and multi layered character who often within the same sequence must dramatically shift from the polar ends of the spectrum emotionally and we spend as much time in the harsh Alaska landscapes as we do inside Ottway's head and heart.

He constantly escapes the harshness of reality into a something that is never quite a memory but never quite a fantasy either where he is reunited with his wife in a warm, clean and sun streaked bed. It isn't until the end of the film, where we get a true idea of what those flashbacks to his wife mean for him as a character and it does a good job of explaining why Ottway is the way he is, in a way that fits the tone of the film. His romanticism of death up until this point becomes suddenly very real, and horrifyingly so.

Ottway's massive size and gruff exterior obviously very deliberately gives him the appearance of some great beast, and with his rich understanding of how wolves operate it is as if he's become a wolf to hunt a wolf. He even makes a joke about becoming a wolf man when he's bitten early on in the film, I like to see this as a self aware nod at himself, which makes Ottway feel real and lived in.

Apparently The Grey was quite proud of its spiritual aspect, appealing to Christian Groups in its marketing, despite this however I'd say the film is the complete opposite of spiritual. When Ottway cries out for help to "The Almighty" he gets nothing and he only ever gets to the point of crying for God's help when all other options are exhausted. The Grey's message is that religion is a last resort for the desperate, not a final hope for the righteous and the only person you can count on, is you. That is about as damning of the Christian Faith and the followers as you can be, without being a satirical political cartoon.

Still, even if it isn't spiritual, Ottway's character arc is still incredibly rewarding. Losing his wife Ottway loses his purpose but somehow this gives his life greater value, as he can prove he is in control of it by taking his own life rather than losing it to something else. However when he survives the plane crash and is thrown into a survival game, death no longer becomes his choice and he then seizes life as a rebellion. Life as rebellion? What a beautiful fucking thing.

There are no fire breathing mutations or building sized wolves here but it doesn't really matter, the wolf pack has organisation and tactics that Ottway's ragtag group lacks which leads them to be fairly swiftly picked off and as Ottway's group struggles through the snow and battles the cold, the wolves are right at home - literally - and make full use of their home turf advantage. A lot of films like to suggest that desperation will save any average man but desperation doesn't help our survivors, if anything it makes it worse for them.

For the most part we never see the wolves bar for quick close ups of eyes and snarling teeth, even when we get full body shots they're disguised by storms and shadows. The idea of them is supposed to be enough to elicit the horror required from the audience, and Carnahan rightly fears any wider reveals of the wolves would slip the film into exploitation territory which would be a giant misdirection considering the tone of the piece. Some have complained the ending is abrupt, myself included, but upon watching this again the ending fits perfectly, especially when accompanied by the after credits shot.

There is never a moment in the film where the weather will give way to the kind of carnage witnessed in the likes of a film directed by Roland Emmerich and once again I feel this is the right decision by Carnahan given the tone of his film. In general Carnahan directs this like a true master, every creative decision feels right for the film and he always feels like he's in total control of his picture. Carnahan has been often remarked as a breed of more intelligent action director but I can't honestly say I've seen much of his body of work, or really cared for what I have seen, but this movie really shows his talent as a filmmaker and I hope he makes more films like The Grey in the future.

If I was to have any real complaints of the film, it'd be the deaths. No film I've ever seen has been able to give every character a death as memorable as one another, but when you see how great the death of characters like Talget can be with the haunting and heartbreaking visit from his daughter in the snow and the similarly heartbreaking but downright fantastic "death" of Ottway, I can't help but feel deaths of other characters - which includes dying in their sleep or simply giving up - lose some impact which takes away from what the film is trying to. Overall a minor complaint, but a complaint is a complaint.

Another - not so much complaint but "audience divider" - will be the films pace. It's two hours long, and although the film wastes little time dropping our men into a survival horror film, once it gets there it takes its time and slows down a lot. If you keep it in mind that this ISN'T an action film, you can enjoy the slow burn of the rising tension, the heavy dialogue and rich character focus but I'm sure there are going to be so many people in the audience who expected a completely different film, which is certainly the marketings fault, and not the audiences. The film is likely to taste pretty sour to them.

Overall, how often do you see a film where the rewards are greater than the concept? In the era of Syfy Originals I'd say almost never. The Grey then, is a breath of fresh air for all genre fans desperate to find a little injection of depth into the things they love. Betrayal by marketing aside, I honestly can't see how anyone could dislike this absolute masterpiece. I'd honestly go as far as to say it's one of the greatest films ever made.

The bluray also comes with twenty minutes of deleted, extended or alternative sequences and most of them prove why they were cut from Ottway being saved by a polar bear to a pointless scene of Flannery getting dragged over a corpse. The little changes, additions and extensions to the campfire sequence though are most welcome and I'm sad they weren't included in the finished product. And the scene of them looting the plane was fun but wouldn't have fit with the film, so it makes sense to cut out, even if it was a good scene.