5) The Grey
Trailers promise a down-and-dirty Liam Neeson action movie in which the growling sexagenarian has a fist fight with wolves – but don’t be fooled. The Grey is a survival movie through-and-through, and a gritty, depressing one at that.
The film does feature that outrageous scene, where Neeson’s John Ottway fashions himself some wolf-dicing knuckle dusters out of smashed bottles of booze miniatures, but it doesn’t come until the very end. Up to that point, it’s a sober, harrowing story of survival, with the twist being that hardly anybody manages to survive.
Having crash-landed in wintry Alaska, John attempts to guide a rag-tag team out of wolf territory, and back to the safety of civilization. But the weather is perilous, and the wolves don’t consider it polite that a bunch of alpha males have stepped onto their turf.
Unless you’re 1) Liam Neeson, or 2) handy with weaponry improvised by your own fair hands in the harsh wilderness, it’s probably best you don’t venture out into the middle of snowy Alaska any time soon.
