Review: "THE GREY"

Starring: Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Joe Anderson, Dallas Roberts, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale
Written by: Joe Carnahan and Ian MacKenzie Jeffers (based on Jeffers' short story "Ghost Walker")
Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Having been born and raised in Minnesota, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I hate winters. I've never enjoyed the season (if it were up to me, the entire year would be the month of May), and despite the state being an obvious hotspot for ice fishing, hockey, snowmobiling, and the like, I've always found the heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures to not being worth the trouble.

Of course, my bitching isn't exactly comparable to the troubles of the peoples of the state of Alaska. Despite having an incredibly beautiful landscape and being an important hotbed of natural resources for the country, I just could not see myself living there. After all, the state has a scant population (the fourth lowest in the United States), it's too vast and barren, the temperatures and snowstorms probably make Minnesota's winter feel like summertime in the Mojave Desert, and the high numbers of natural predators make getting lost in the wilderness very low on my list of priorities.


So not surprisingly, a good chunk of jobs in the state are wrought with more dangers than those in the continental U.S. face, especially when the majority of industries make camp in the heart of the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing how to survive is paramount, but what happens when nature sucks you away from your comfort zone and into a cold abyss where you no longer have the predatorial advantage?

The struggle against the harsh mistress of nature and bringing the beast out of the man in order to survive are the themes that permeate director Joe Carnahan's surprisingly good and philosophically complex survival thriller The Grey.

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is a sniper who defends an Alaskan oil drilling ensemble by killing any grey wolves that approach the area, but despite being good at what he does, John is secretly despairing over his wife Ana (Anne Openshaw) leaving him. Writing a letter to her that he plans on taking his own life, he nearly does so on the last night of the drilling, but is stopped by the faraway howl of a wolf.

Ottway ends up boarding a plane with the men from the job. However, a sudden snowstorm causes the plane to crash in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Ottway is then stranded along with the only survivors: Hendrick (Dallas Roberts), Flannery (Joe Anderson), Burke (Nonso Anozie), Lewenden (James Badge Dale), Talget (Dermot Mulroney), and ex-con Diaz (Frank Grillo). Lacking any means of calling for help, the men immediately set up camp in the forest and plot their survival strategy.

Unfortunately, the extreme cold isn't the only danger they face, when they soon realize that they're being stalked by a pack of wolves. Armed with only their wits and scant resources, Ottway and his group must do what they can to live and escape.

Let me disclose the fact that I was rather excited to see this movie upon first seeing the previews, if for one reason and one reason only:

Liam Nesson fighting goddamn wolves.

Despite having a long, diverse, and well-respected acting career, the Oscar-nominated Irishman has apparently been reinventing himself for the last few years as a middle-aged action star whose characters have only been interested in kicking ass, taking names, and whatever else was in between. And for the most part, I really dug it. With his steely gaze, calm demeanor, and authoritative personality, Neeson has made for a convincing movie badass. So when I saw trailers with Neeson charging at a bloodthirsty wolf? Yeah, I was already sold.

And this is despite my lack of enthusiasm for the film's director Joe Carnahan. With the exception of his terrific 2002 crime thriller Narc, the rest of his directorial output has ranged from mediocre (The A-Team, which also starred Neeson) to awful (Smokin' Aces). Of course, it might be unfair to judge his skills seeing how he's only helmed a handful of films thus far, but I was still wary nonetheless this time around.

But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that The Grey was a cut above the everyday survival thrillers, and not because of a lack of brutal action and suspense, but rather the unusual addition of human emotion, a main character that you actually care about, and a somber philosophical edge that I didn't see coming.

Here, Carnahan crafts the survivors as a bunch of tough guys who are only tough on the outside: on the inside, they're terrified. Being caught in the precarious maw of nature tears away the teams' rough exterior to expose the raw essence of their fear, how much they truly value their lives, and their inner spiritual discord.

Indeed, Neeson's character serves as the film's existential sounding board. Traumatized by his wife leaving him and the cold, emotionless nature of his profession, Ottway explores the concepts of a merciful God (or the very lack of one), the point of our existence, and whether or not we're really the hot shit that we homo sapiens believe ourselves to be.

And while the chase scenes and wolf attacks are appropriately frightening and intense, there's no sense of cheap horror-movie exploitation during the death scenes. They may be bloody and vicious, but each kill (especially in the film's last half hour) is extremely emotional and even heartbreaking to watch. The supporting characters aren't that fleshed-out (with the slight exception of Grillo's character), but watching these scared and helpless men die-- especially when the last things they imagine are their families-- add much-needed depth to the severity of what the film's trying to convey.

But when it all boils down to Neeson's character, The Grey does a terrific job crafting a character whose original desire for death turns to a warrior's instinct to survive when he realizes that he's as much a force of nature as the forces that oppose him, even after losing all faith that God has abandoned him.

And it's here where the film polarizes me. As much as I appreciated the final product, I really wish the filmmakers would have gone a bit further in forcing Neeson's character becoming more animalistic in his desperate desire to survive, where the reptilian section of the brain takes over completely and reduces man to his baser evolutionary instincts. The idea of the monster within the man-- even a good man-- has always fascinated me, and I was disappointed that Carnahan didn't go a step further, especially since the film's ending makes this squelched opportunity even more frustrating.

Nonetheless, The Grey is still a well-executed thriller that makes damn good use of chillingly gorgeous cinematography, a sad yet ambient score by Marc Streitenfeld, an encouraging sense of mature direction by Carnahan, and a terrific lead performance from Neeson. It may not edge me any closer to moving to the Land of the Midnight Sun (or even a vacation, for that matter), but it's a fine entry in the resume of a filmmaker whose future output will hopefully go on to take note of what worked so well this time around.

Letter Grade: "B"

Review: "GOON"

Starring: Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Marc-Andre Grondin, Eugene Levy, Alison Pill, Kim Coates
Written by: Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg
Directed by: Michael Dowse

I've never been a huge sports fan. While my family always made sure to watch football and baseball whenever possible, I had zero interest in such shenanigans, preferring to stick to finer and far more sophisticated ventures, such as comic books, video games, and, ironically, professional wrestling.

In fact, it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I went to my first hockey game with my father. Having never even seen a game of the notoriously violent winter sport on television (unless childhood viewings of The Mighty Ducks count), I was in for a huge surprise in regards to how much I loved it. The intensity and lightning-fast pace immediately grew on me, not to mention the signature fisticuffs between unruly players. Sure, it was hypermasculine ridiculousness to a "T", but upon leaving, I couldn't deny what an absorbing and strangely poetic experience the so-called "fastest game on Earth" was.

But even though I was impressed by all the facets of the game, what appealed to me the most were the fights: mostly notably, those instigated by the teams' unofficial enforcers, or "goons", whose sole purpose was to take out any opposing team member gunning for important players on the goon's team. While the concept of the goon has been derided by hockey critics, it begs the question: is being a goon a thankless, expendable existence, or do they serve as an integral cog in the team's machinery?

Luckily, we get an unsung hero story in the form of director Michael Dowse's Goon, a funny, brutal, and surprisingly sweet-natured comedy that certainly gives the goon his due.

Massachusetts native Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a good-natured but less-than-intelligent bouncer working at a local bar, and he's really good at what he does. But despite his natural skill at knocking hooligans out with brute efficiency, he still lives in the disappointed shadow of his father (Eugene Levy), who, like Doug's brother Ira (David Paetkau), is a successful doctor.

Attending a minor league hockey game with his vulgar, hockey webcast-hosting buddy Pat (Jay Baruchel), Doug defends Pat after the latter taunts a surly player from the visiting team. Witnessing how easily Doug beat up the hockey player, the home team's coach offers Doug a spot as the team's "enforcer", where his sole purpose is to brawl with opposing players sniffing out Doug's comrades. Doug quickly becomes a hit, and is quickly sent up to Halifax, Nova Scotia to serve as the enforcer for the local Highlanders team, which is currently suffering from a major losing streak.

It turns out that Doug is needed to protect Highlander member Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), a former star prospect who three years earlier was concussed by legendary enforcer Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Liev Schreiber). The concussion left Laflamme traumatized, where he sunk into a delinquent and drug-filled funk that he's never fully recovered from. Doug's skills make him hugely popular with the Nova Scotian fans, and even attracts the attention of hockey groupie Eva (Alison Pill).

Despite his parents voicing their displeasure with his new profession-- not to mention gaining the ire of a jealous Laflamme-- Doug is steadfast in his goal at achieving greatness, especially when he's locked in the sights of Rhea, recently returning from a 20-game suspension and deadset on taking down Doug should they ever meet on the ice.

Vulgar, foul-mouthed hockey comedies are truly few and far between these days-- especially considering that the last film that probably bore those adjectives was the great 1977 Paul Newman-starrer Slap Shot, which also centered on a minor league hockey ensemble that focuses on the sport's more violent aspects. But while it probably won't have the same legacy as that previous classic, Goon comes pretty damn close.

Written by Pineapple Express scribe Evan Goldberg and co-star Jay Baruchel (and loosely based on the true story of real-life minor league goon Doug Smith), Goon could have been a standard, by-the-numbers sports comedy, possibly bogged down by Adam Sandleresque gimmickry and nonstop fart jokes. And while very few non-profanities get a word in edge-wise here, there's very little cartoonish padding here, which is a pleasant relief.

Instead, we get an underdog story whose underdog you couldn't root more for, thanks to an incredibly sweet and sincere performance by Seann William Scott, who takes a break from his usual alpha-male fratboy roles best personified by his breakthrough role in the American Pie series. Despite his near-robotic finesse in beating the piss out of anyone in his sights, Doug is nonetheless decent, kind, exceedingly well-mannered, and unwaveringly loyal to his team. His lack of book smarts doesn't seem to mar his hero's journey, either: he's essentially Forrest Gump meets Wayne Gretzky. It's a revelatory performance, and gives the film every single ounce of its heart and soul.

In fact, Scott's character's dimwitted-yet-sweet demeanor makes for a major chunk of the film's comedy. Whether it's his poor attempts at making insulting comebacks,  his persistent sportsmanlike attitude in a sport where sportsmanship is essentially nonexistent, or his sheer joy of getting to do what he does best-- hitting people-- Doug makes for one of the best underdog characters in recent cinema history.

And what's best about the performance is that it feels naturalistic instead of blatant comedy fodder. There's no Judd Apatow-style broad-comedy flourishes here (save for Baruchel's character, and one or two minor characters on the Highlanders team), and the rest of the cast deliver amusing performances, even if they don't stack up to Scott's. Liev Schreiber is great as the world-weary goon who, despite sharing mutual respect with Doug, can't wait to mop the ice with Doug's body. There's a great scene between the two where they meet in a diner, wherein Schreiber essentially lays down the cold, hard truth about the relevance of a goon in a hockey player's world. Despite being a comedy, it's a tense scene, one that would lead up to the climactic knockout brawl between the two.

And yes, being a movie about hockey, the action is pretty brutal. A far cry from feel-good hockey flicks like Mighty Ducks or Miracle, the fight scenes are jarringly hardcore, and sometimes even tough to watch. The shaky-cam, over-the-shoulder shots are pretty damn effective, and the blood and teeth fly at breakneck velocity, making you forget at times that you're still watching a comedy.

But the juxtaposition between the extreme violence and the terrific performance by Scott works perfectly here. Like my first real-life experience with the game of hockey, I never expected to enjoy Goon as much as I did. Probably one of the best sports movies I've seen in the last several years, Goon is a comedic slapshot to both the funny bone and the heart.

Letter Grade: "A-"