If you were one of the many people sold entirely on the prospect of 2011’s survival thriller The Grey by virtually all of the teasers, trailers, and TV spots dropping the money shot of Liam Neeson preparing to face down a pack of wolves armed with nothing more than broken glass taped to his fists, then you had every right to be disappointed.
After all, Joe Carnahan’s sub-zero story of battling against the odds in the face of the unforgiving force of nature arrived right when the veteran actor’s unexpected reinvention as cinema’s most bankable action hero was in full swing, so it did make sense from a marketing perspective to lean into the promise of Neeson kicking even more ass, even if the movie had no intention of delivering.
It might rank among the most misleading promo campaigns of the modern age, but the sins were forgiven by most when The Grey turned out to be an excellent film that fully earned its Rotten Tomatoes score of 79 percent, as well as an $81 million haul at the box office on production costs of $25 million.
Although it definitely isn’t what was sold and packaged to the masses, it still holds up as one of the against-the-odds subgenre’s finest efforts to come along in a long time, and it’s still capable of surviving a streaming blizzard.
Per FlixPatrol, The Grey can be found as the eighth most-watched title among Hulu subscribers in the United States, with more than enough time having passed to allow audiences to enjoy it for what it is, as opposed to being left furious and confused after discovering that it wasn’t what the studio claimed it to be.
