In Theaters: THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012)

THE WOMAN IN BLACK
(US/UK/Canada - 2012)

Directed by James Watkins.  Written by Jane Goldman.  Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarin Hinds, Janet McTeer, Liz White, Roger Allam, Mary Stockley.  (PG-13, 95 mins)

Since the resurrection of Hammer, Britain's leading House of Horror, success has been elusive.  LET ME IN, a remake of the Swedish LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, was a fine film that tanked in theaters, while THE RESIDENT and WAKE WOOD got minimal theatrical exposure before being dumped on DVD.   The biggest problem with these films, aside from THE RESIDENT (which featured Hammer icon Christopher Lee) and WAKE WOOD not being very good, is that they seemed to be Hammer in name only.  There was no sense that these films really had anything "Hammer" about them other than attempting to coast on an established label. 

So in that respect, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a huge step in the right direction.  It's a quaintly charming, chilling old-school gothic horror throwback with no gore, a leisurely pace that lets the tension build, and it proves that the old ways are still the best.  This early 20th century period piece is filled with creaking floors, howling winds, thick fog, marshes, ominous hallways illuminated only by candlelight, chairs rocking themselves, rooms full of creepy dolls, music boxes with unsettling melodies, wind-up toys that look ready to attack, and ghostly faces peering out of windows or materializing in the darkness.  For those in a particular age group, it's the kind of old-fashioned fright flick that normally exists only in our childhood memories of late-night Creature Features on TV.   You could almost picture Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, or Michael Gough in this and there'd be little difference.  I'm happy that a film like this can get released in 2012.  I'm not sure how much today's text-happy asswipes in theaters will like it (one cineaste a few rows back from me kept huffing "This is gay"), so the best you can hope for is that these shitbags don't ruin it for the rest of us.

A post-HARRY POTTER Daniel Radcliffe is a few years too young but acquits himself well as lawyer Arthur Kipps, widowed with a four-year-old son (his wife died in childbirth).  Struggling with his job and, it's hinted, the bottle, Kipps is given one last chance by his boss (Roger Allam), who assigns him to venture to Eel Marsh and close the estate of the late Mrs. Drablow.  No one in town wants Kipps there, and no one will take him down the long causeway leading to the Drablow house, a road that becomes impassable when the evening tide rolls in.  Kipps eventually makes his way to the house and uncovers long-buried secrets in the Drablow family.  And it doesn't take him long to realize that he's not alone.

Featuring solid supporting work from ALBERT NOBBS Oscar nominee Janet McTeer and the great Ciarin Hinds, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is directed by the promising James Watkins, who wrote and directed the disturbing 2008 film EDEN LAKE.  He also wrote the 2002 cult film MY LITTLE EYE, and, unfortunately, 2010's uninspired, superfluous THE DESCENT PART 2.  Obviously a disciple of vintage Hammer fare, Watkins shows a real knack for Victorian-era chills here.  By now, we're trained as viewers to expect a creepy face to materialize in the darkness, but Watkins still makes it work, often playing with your expectations of where they'll pop up, and even though it's familiar, it still scares.  And the production design is very nicely done, so much so that you can almost smell the dank mustiness when Kipps explores the house at Eel Marsh.  Written by Jane Goldman, and based on a novel by Susan Hill, THE WOMAN IN BLACK isn't reinventing the wheel, and doesn't try to.  It's an earnest exercise in mood and atmosphere that will thoroughly engross and terrify if you let it.  I'm cynical enough to think that most audiences will laugh this off the screen, but if it even encourages a handful of younger moviegoers to explore the classics from Hammer's past and develop and nurture an appreciation of those truly timeless films, then it'll be worth it even if it fails at the box office.  I thought LET ME IN was a terrific film, but it wasn't a Hammer film. With THE WOMAN IN BLACK, we finally have a film from the "new" Hammer where the legendary brand seems appropriate.

On DVD/Blu-ray: THE MILL & THE CROSS (2011), OUTRAGE (2010)

THE MILL & THE CROSS
(Poland/Sweden - 2011)

THE MILL & THE CROSS is that rarest of happenings: a truly unique, original film experience.  It's admittedly a film of very limited interest and not without flaws, but Polish auteur Lech Majewski, whose work has been little-seen in the US, has created one of the most visually breathtaking films to come down the pike in a long time.  A mix of CGI, greenscreen, and old-school matte work creates a look that almost seems 3D without being as such.  Majewski's film deals with Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary," and places Bruegel, played here by Rutger Hauer, in the middle of the painting as we observe his inspiration and creation of the famed work of art. 


The painting puts Christ's crucifixion in a contemporary 16th century Flanders, where Bruegel and his friend and benefactor Peter Jonghelink (Michael York) witness Protestant Flemish persecution at the hands of the Catholics of the Spanish Militia. Using the crucifixion as an allegory for the atrocities committed by the Spanish Catholics, Bruegel observes all and conveys it in his art, and Majewski, in effect, turns the film into a living, breathing painting.  It's hard to describe and I didn't really get what the film was going for just by reading about it.  But seeing it...you've never seen anything like it.  The detail and depth of every shot is simply astonishing, and the film is at its best when Majewski just lets the camera roam around "the painting" and we see the painstakingly recreated daily routine of Flemish life. 

Oddly, the weakest elements are the dialogue scenes, which come off as tediously lecturing in a way that recalls the dry educational films that Roberto Rossellini made at the end of his career.  It's no fault of the actors, but Hauer, for instance, isn't playing Bruegel as a character as much he is a tour guide.  Much of his dialogue could've come straight from Wikipedia.  The same goes for York, whose job is to basically ask Hauer "Do you really think you can express that?" and provide background info that makes Peter Jonghelink come off more like a 16th century Flemish ancestor of Basil Exposition.   THE MILL & THE CROSS is by no means a mainstream film, and will likely be relegated to screenings in college Art History courses, but from a purely visual, cinematic standpoint, it's highly recommended.  How did this not get any visual effects Oscar nods? (Unrated, 96 mins)


OUTRAGE
(Japan - 2010; 2011 US release)

Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano's first starring "Beat Takeshi" yakuza vehicle since 2001's BROTHER seems like little more than a series of escalating slights and insults between rival yakuza.  Almost every scene involves a bunch of pissed-off gangsters busting each others' balls until punches are thrown, shots are fired, or someone has to chop off their own pinky in disgrace.  Kitano, again acting as "Beat Takeshi," still has a powerful screen presence and it's great seeing him in this kind of film again, but his past works of this sort like SONATINE had a bit more substance to them.  That's not to say OUTRAGE isn't entertaining.  It is, and very much so.  There's a lot of dark humor, a synthy '80s-style score, and some inspired scenes of insane violence (Takeshi slashing a guy's face with a boxcutter; accosting another during a dental appointment and drilling deep into his gums; forcing another to stick out his tongue and then quickly cracking him on the chin; one guy getting stabbed in the ear with chopsticks), but the plot is confusing as hell and the fact that every scene ends with someone getting punched actually becomes comical. You could make a drinking game out of it and you'd be hammered by the 40-minute mark.  It's almost as if every character in the film is modeled on Joe Pesci in GOODFELLAS/CASINO mode.  The grim finale aside, perhaps Takeshi intended this to be a sick black comedy.  It certainly works when approached from that angle. (R, 109 mins)

On DVD/Netflix streaming: BLUBBERELLA (2011)

BLUBBERELLA
(Canada - 2011; 2012 US release)

Directed by Uwe Boll.  Written by Uwe Boll, Michael Christopher, Lindsay Hollister, and William Belli.  Cast: Lindsay Hollister, Brendan Fletcher, Michael Pare, Clint Howard, William Belli, Steffen Mennekes, Uwe Boll, Annett Culp.  (R, 86 mins)

I've toughed out every Uwe Boll movie since 2003's HOUSE OF THE DEAD.  I actually paid to see IN THE NAME OF THE KING in a theater.  I applauded him when he actually made a good film with STOIC.  I've stuck with him though the last few years when he no longer had German tax loopholes to rope in big names like Ben Kingsley, Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, and Ray Liotta and all he could afford were the likes of Edward Furlong, Billy Zane, Michael Pare and Clint Howard. My point is that I know this filmmaker.  I know him better than he knows himself.  As the pre-eminent Bollologist of the Mobius Home Video Forum, it's my job.  It's...what I do.

And that more than qualifies me to say that Uwe Boll has hit rock bottom with BLUBBERELLA.

Shot in Croatia at the same time and on the same sets as BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH and Boll's still-unreleased drama AUSCHWITZ, BLUBBERELLA feels half-assed and was probably made up as it went along.  It's got numerous bits of stock footage recycled from BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH.  The outtakes during the closing credits even show a clapboard with "BLOODRAYNE 3" written on it! With the exception of stars/co-writers Lindsay Hollister and William Belli, and absent BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH star Natassia Malthe, the cast and crew of both films are identical.  They're even playing the same characters.  Boll conceived BLUBBERELLA as a spoof of the third BLOODRAYNE film, with largely the same plot, but with an emphasis on crude humor that fails to be funny.  Boll's done the shock comedy thing before with POSTAL, and that had a surprising number of legitimate laughs in it.  But BLUBBERELLA is just laziness of the lowest order, bringing to mind the inane and depressingly lucrative "just making the reference is funny enough" comedies of the loathsome Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (DATE MOVIE, EPIC MOVIE, MEET THE SPARTANS, etc).  How bad is BLUBBERELLA?  There's probably snuff films with more laughs.

"If anyone wants to greenlight EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS III, I promise to clear my schedule."

Blubberella (Hollister) is the sizable hero, a half-human/half-vampire superhero in 1940, "in a Jew-y part of town" as a caption states.  Voted most likely to marry a black man, Blubberella tries to find a nice guy on a dating site, but instead ends up taking on Nazi evil when she falls in with a crew of Resistance fighters, led by diminutive Boll regular Brendan Fletcher.  All of these actors/characters are holdovers from BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH except for the flamboyantly gay Vadge (Belli), who prompts Blubberella to say "Homosayswhat?"  Blubberella and crew take on a vampirized Nazi commandant (Michael Pare) and a mad doctor (Clint Howard) who have hatched a plan to make Hitler (played by Boll himself) immortal.

The humor is either outrageously offensive (Vadge spraying air freshener in a train car packed full of Jews bound for Auschwitz; Belli and Fletcher each playing a scene in blackface; jokes about rape) or intentionally anachronistic (Blubberella checking e-mail on a laptop and mentioning pilates).  The Friedberg/Seltzer comparison is apt considering that the references to things as varied as AMERICAN IDOL, PRECIOUS, CITIZEN KANE, Lindsay Lohan, Mickey Rourke, Michael Jackson, Corey Haim, and Heath Ledger's Joker just to name a few, are apparently supposed to be funny in and of themselves.  Now, you can make offensive jokes about race and Jews and whatnot and still have it be funny.  Mel Brooks is proof of that.  And even Boll made a joke about 9/11 in the opening scene of POSTAL and yes, I admit, I laughed at it.  But BLUBBERELLA is a lazy, throwaway piece of work, with 11 minutes of closing credits (!) required to pad it to just 86 minutes. Nobody's trying, every joke falls with a loud thud, and really, other than Uwe Boll, was anyone clamoring for a spoof of BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH?

Uwe Boll captured in a pensive moment on the set.

On DVD/Blu-ray: Special "Most Likely Never Played At A Theater Near You" Edition: THE DOUBLE (2011); TEXAS KILLING FIELDS (2011)

THE DOUBLE
(US/United Arab Emirates - 2011)

Formulaic spy thriller was barely released to theaters last fall despite the presence of the dependable Richard Gere.  It's not a bad movie, just a thoroughly generic one, and one that probably plays a lot better if you're camped out on your couch after a long day at work than it would as a night out at the movies.  It's really no better or worse than an episode of your average weekly CBS procedural.  Retired CIA agent Shepherdson (Gere) is brought back on the job by his former boss Highland (Martin Sheen) when new evidence suggests Cassius, a deadly Russian spy thought killed in 1988, is alive and well and attempting to restart the Cold War.  Shepherdson is teamed with wet-behind-the-ears FBI agent Geary (Topher Grace), a bureau expert on Cassius, which gives us plenty of scenes of Gere being annoyed with his inexperienced partner (which I'm sure wasn't exactly a stretch).  Twists and turns abound, a major one revealed a bit too early in the film (and the trailer gives it away), and things get increasingly silly as they progress, leading to a real howler near the end.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with THE DOUBLE, and it practically gets by just on the presence of pros like Gere and Sheen.  Grace, who still looks 12, is a bit less convincing, as are locales in Detroit and Ann Arbor, MI filling in for Washington DC.   Featuring Odette Yustman, TRUE BLOOD's Stephen Moyer, CASTLE's Stana Katic, and 50 Cent BFF Tamer Hassan, plus music contributions by Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson.  Gere's days as a box office draw are most likely in the past, but if nothing else, predictable comfort food fare like THE DOUBLE shows that he'd be a great candidate for a weekly CSI or NCIS-type network procedural. (PG-13, 98 mins)



TEXAS KILLING FIELDS
(US - 2011)

Going nowhere and not in any particular hurry to get there, TEXAS KILLING FIELDS is one of those well-intentioned misfires where you can see a better film lurking somewhere deep in the mess that's on the screen. Danny Boyle was attached to the project early in pre-production, but reportedly felt the subject matter was too dark and left. Ami Canaan Mann, daughter of executive producer Michael Mann, ended up directing this "inspired by true events" story of a string of murders of underage prostitutes in the marshy outskirts of Texas City, TX. Mann and screenwriter Donald F. Ferrarone can't seem to find a focus here. There's too many extraneous, insignificant characters who get far too much screen time at the expense of developing the characters who do matter. The major players are a pair of detectives, played by a miscast Sam Worthington and the underrated Jeffrey Dean Morgan. British Worthington's mush-mouthed attempt at a Texas twang renders a lot of his dialogue unintelligible, but Morgan, a consistently engaging actor who can't seem to catch a break, is very good. There's also Chloe Grace Moretz (KICK-ASS, LET ME IN, HUGO) as a troubled teen with a trashy skank mom (Sheryl Lee sighting!) and Worthington's THE DEBT co-star Jessica Chastain, in approximately her 38th film of 2011, is his ex-wife, a cop in a nearby town. The film never really gets any momentum going, and there's some really choppy, sloppy editing. Watch the scene where Morgan interrogates a pimp. With no explanation, Morgan's already got a huge bruise on the left side of his face that he doesn't actually get until a couple scenes later when he's hit in the face with a shovel. At the time it was shot, the interrogation was obviously supposed to happen later. This isn't a film with a fractured time element. It's just a huge gaffe. Throughout, it seems like potentially important scenes were just left out of the finished film and plot points are introduced and dropped, with some scattered powerful moments that indicate what might've been. TEXAS KILLING FIELDS doesn't feel completed as much as it feels abandoned. At its widest release last fall, this was on a total of ten screens in the US, and it's easy to see why. Expectations come with a Mann at the helm (she also served as second unit director on her dad's classic HEAT), and this is a major disappointment. (R, 105 mins)

On DVD: Katarina's Nightmare Theater Double Feature: THE DEVIL'S MEN (1976)/TERROR (1978)

Scorpion Releasing's latest in the "Katarina's Nightmare Theater" line of exploitation/horror/cult titles is a double feature of previously available titles, though THE DEVIL'S MEN is the original uncut version of the censored LAND OF THE MINOTAUR.



THE DEVIL'S MEN
(Greece/UK - 1976)

Released in the US in 1977 in a cut, PG-rated version titled LAND OF THE MINOTAUR, THE DEVIL'S MEN is a shoddy, low-budget Greek/British addition to the '70s Satanist subgenre, top-lined by a slumming Donald Pleasence and Peter Cushing (just before playing Grand Moff Tarkin in STAR WARS), both of whom were no doubt more interested in a paid Greek vacation than anything the script had to offer.  This marks the first time that director Costas Carayiannis' uncensored cut has been released in the US, restoring all the gore and nudity and excised from the MINOTAUR release.  Pleasence is possibly-Irish priest Father Roche (I say "possibly" because sometimes he sounds like Donald Pleasence, and sometimes he sounds like Lucky the Leprechaun), who calls upon his NYC-based private eye pal Milo (Costa Skouras) to take on a devil-worshipping cult that turns out to be led by obviously evil town elder Baron Corofax (Cushing).  Filled with cheap gore effects, bad dubbing of the Greek supporting cast, unintended laughs (like Roche and Milo's complete non-reaction to the zombified police chief), continuity errors (a right punch from Milo aimed at a dude's face immediately cuts to a left punch hitting the guy in the crotch), incompetent day-for-night shooting, and idiotic dialogue (when a woman is chased by some robed figures, Milo says "Maybe it was just a cow loose in the woods"), THE DEVIL'S MEN is given a bit of lift from some appropriately atmospheric Greek locales, the presence of two old pros like Pleasence and Cushing (though I doubt the sporadically-appearing Cushing spent more than a few days on the set), and a chilling electronic score by Brian Eno, of all people.  Hardly the most embarrassing picture Pleasence or Cushing ever made, but certainly in the "good Bad Movie" realm.  Scorpion's 1.78:1 transfer looks as good as it's probably ever looked, considering its budget-deprived origins.  And dig that funky jam over the closing credits!  (Unrated, 94 mins)


TERROR
(UK - 1978)

Is Dario Argento a fan of British hack Norman J. Warren?  Warren is certainly a fan of Argento, and admits as much in a 40-minute (!) retrospective documentary on TERROR, a mildly diverting supernatural horror film with occasional nods to Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977).  But what I found interesting were a couple of shots that looked suspiciously similar to later Argento works:  one character's death from a pane of glass was probably intended as an OMEN knockoff but now looks a lot like Irene Miracle's fate in 1980's INFERNO, and another's death on a staircase brought to mind a demise from 1982's TENEBRE.  But Warren is nowhere near the stylist that Argento was back then (though, sadly to say for Argento, they're probably equals now, but that's another topic for another time), and TERROR isn't exactly some gem waiting to be dusted off for rediscovery.  The plot deals with a movie director (John Nolan, uncle of INCEPTION director Christopher) whose latest film is about a witch ancestor who swore vengeance after being burned at the stake.  Mysterious deaths start befalling everyone associated with the film.  Warren seems inspired more by THE OMEN than SUSPIRIA, but one delirious scene has a guy being attacked by unrolled film in a garishly-lit room that is clearly inspired by the barbed-wire room death in SUSPIRIA.  Aside from a few occasionally interesting bits--the unrolled film death; brief appearances by Peter "Chewbacca" Mayhew as a mechanic and the hulking Milton Reid as a sunglassed strip joint bouncer; and a frightening stripper who looks like Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty--TERROR is a pretty laborious slog, indifferently-acted and cheaply-made (a scene with a levitating car is undone by clearly visible ropes hoisting it in mid-air).  Not without some decent moments, but largely forgettable.  Warren went on to make the infamous ALIEN ripoff INSEMINOID, a much more entertaining film which had a long life on pay cable throughout the '80s under its US title HORROR PLANET.  TERROR has been on DVD before, but the making-of doc is a new addition, and I assume the fairly nice-looking 1.78:1 transfer is as well.  (R, 84 mins)

Both films are on one disc, with the option of playing them with or without the introduction by horror hostess and former WWE star Katarina Leigh Waters.  Trailers for past and future Scorpion titles are also included.

On DVD: ROGER CORMAN'S CULT CLASSICS: LETHAL LADIES COLLECTION 2

LETHAL LADIES COLLECTION 2 is the latest in Shout Factory's impressive "Roger Corman's Cult Classics" line, focusing on Corman's work as a producer/distributor with his New World Pictures in the 1970s and Concorde in the 1980s.  While Vol. 2 doesn't reach the delirious heights of LETHAL LADIES 1's TNT JACKSON ("She'll put you in traction!") and FIRECRACKER, there's still plenty of drive-in action and skin to keep any exploitation fan satisfied.


THE ARENA
(Italy/US - 1974)

The first film in the set is easily the best.  THE ARENA (aka NAKED WARRIORS) is a sort of ancient Rome/feminist take on SPARTACUS with a bit of THE DEFIANT ONES as a band of sexy slave girls, led by Margaret Markov and Pam Grier, become female gladiators and lead a revolt against the asshole men in charge.  Corman co-financed THE ARENA with Rome-based American actor/producer Mark Damon, and supplied the stars (Markov and Grier both had a recent hit with 1973's BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA), the script, and director Steve Carver, and Damon supplied the Italian crew and Italian supporting cast.  So there's an interesting mix of talent in front of and behind the camera:  co-stars Paul Muller, Rosalba Neri, Lucretia Love, Salvatore Baccaro, and Vassili Karis, composer Francesco De Masi and cinematographer Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato) are no strangers to fans of Eurotrash cult movies, nor are the familiar voices dubbing the cast (Italian films of the time were shot without direct sound, requiring post-production dubbing, and the perpetually miserly Corman didn't want to pay to have Markov and Grier fly back to Rome to record their dialogue, so Grier and Markov are both dubbed).  Carver, a veteran second-unit director for Corman, was given his first shot at directing here, and when THE ARENA proved successful at grindhouses and drive-ins, Corman rewarded him by giving him the same year's BIG BAD MAMA, which was one of New World's biggest hits.  THE ARENA is presented in a nice 2.35:1 transfer and is filled with special features: Carver supplies a director's commentary, and is seen in a retrospective doc that also features Corman, and Damon & Markov, who met on the set on THE ARENA and have been married since. (R, 82 mins)

FLY ME
(US/Philippines - 1973)

Cirio H. Santiago's FLY ME is filled with the Filipino exploitation auteur's usual touches:  gratuitous T&A, terrible acting, inept action sequences, a near-total disregard for continuity, and US-shot inserts that are far more entertaining than the stuff he himself filmed.  In this case, Corman had a young Jonathan Demme shoot additional action sequences in L.A.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in a scene taking place in Tokyo...with the Hollywood sign visible in the distance.  The threadbare plot involves the escapades of three stewardesses (Pat Anderson, Lenore Kasdorf, Lyllah Torena) in the Far East.  A badly-jumbled mix of action, kung-fu, sexploitation, grim sex-trade drama, and broad comedy, FLY ME runs just 72 minutes but feels twice as long.  The worst element is Anderson's overprotective Italian-American mother (Naomi Stevens), who tags along on her daughter's flight and keeps cockblocking a doctor's (Richard Young) attempts to get in Anderson's pants, and shouting "Mamma mia!" at the slightest provocation.  Features Santiago fixtures Vic Diaz and Ken Metcalfe, as well as the venerable Dick Miller as a cabbie in one of the L.A.-shot scenes. The print is 1.78:1 and pretty beat up, but why would you want it any other way?  FLY ME is bad, but it's a fun bad, and no doubt served its purpose at drive-ins with the window speakers cranked in 1973:  something to drown out the noise of couples screwing in their cars. (R, 72 mins)



COVER GIRL MODELS
(US/Philippines - 1975)

Santiago again, and this is a bit more entertaining than FLY ME.  Three women again, this time models (Pat Anderson again, plus Lindsay Bloom and Tara Strohmeier) getting involved in espionage after a microfilm is sewn into one of their dresses while on a photo shoot in Hong Kong.  It's all an excuse for inept kung-fu and nudity, so on those terms, it's a success.  The plot is confusing as hell and I doubt Santiago or screenwriter Howard R. Cohen know (or care) what's going on.  The leads are lot more likable in this one (though Anderson was also appealing and maybe the best thing about FLY ME) and a lot of the humor is legitimately amusing.  Plus, this only feels about one and a half times longer than its 73-minute run time.  Features the ubiquitous Vic Diaz and Ken Metcalfe yet again.  The transfer is 1.78:1 and not as battered as FLY ME, but pretty close. (R, 73 mins)

In Theaters: THE GREY (2012)

THE GREY
(US - 2012)

Directed by Joe Carnahan.  Written by Joe Carnahan and Ian McKenzie Jeffers.  Cast: Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, James Badge Dale, Nonso Anozie, Joe Anderson, Ben Bray.  (R, 117 mins)

Liam Neeson vs. a pack of wolves.

That's the selling point of THE GREY and it's enough to get people in the theater.  Neeson's place in film history was already secured nearly two decades ago with SCHINDLER'S LIST, and as the years went on, he always stayed busy, starring in Oscar bait like KINSEY and appearing in the occasional blockbuster like STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE and BATMAN BEGINS.  But in 2009, at the age of 57, something unexpected happened:  Neeson suddenly became a major action star.

TAKEN was released in the US in February 2009, a full calendar year after it came out in its native France.  US distributor 20th Century Fox almost sent it straight-to-DVD before someone decided to put it in theaters on Super Bowl weekend, not really the best time to release an action movie.  No one expected TAKEN to become the blockbuster that it did, and Neeson is *the* reason it exploded.  It's an entertaining, if inherently ludicrous film that thrives on Neeson's gritty, driven, thoroughly believable performance.  Without Neeson, it would've been another DTV action thriller.  But with him, it's a modern action classic.

Neeson brings that same grit to THE GREY, though unlike TAKEN, it's a much more serious film.  And that's the unexpected element, considering it's directed and co-written by Joe Carnahan, a filmmaker not known for restraint or nuance.  Carnahan's NARC (2002) is a mean, top-notch cop thriller, but he also made the entertainingly trashy guilty pleasure SMOKIN' ACES (2007) and THE A-TEAM (2010).  Carnahan's films have a macho, over-the-top, boys-being-boys demeanor to them, but THE GREY finds him making a credible bid to be Taken Seriously.  Yes, there's the "Liam Neeson vs. a pack of wolves" element, but THE GREY is a film of surprising character depth and unexpected emotion.  Carnahan's manly-man instincts are on full display, but it's just on the exterior.  The men in THE GREY are "scared shitless" to quote one of them, and they're man enough to admit it.  These aren't action heroes.  They're normal people trying to survive and they really don't know what to do.

Neeson is Ottway, a suicidal loner who works as a sharpshooter for an Alaska drilling facility, picking off marauding wolves when they come too close to the workers.  A large group of oil company employees are on a flight to Anchorage when the plane goes down in one cinema's most terrifying plane crashes.  Seven survivors--Ottway, Talget (Dermot Mulroney), Hendrick (Dallas Roberts), Diaz (Frank Grillo), Burke (Nonso Anozie), Flannery (Joe Anderson), and Hernandez (Ben Bray).  An eighth man, Lewenden (James Badge Dale) dies just after the crash and is calmed and comforted by Ottway in a way that'll make you wish Liam Neeson could be there for all of us when it's our time to go.  The men build a fire and while they're deciding what to do, the wolves start appearing.  As part of his job, Ottway knows the ways and mindset of the wolfpack and quickly becomes the de facto alpha of the group as they try to survive the elements and the wolves.

As well-written (it's based on the short story Ghost Walker by co-screenwriter Ian McKenzie Jeffers) and directed as this is, THE GREY lives or dies on the strength of its protagonist, and fortunately, Liam Neeson is a guy that most of us would follow straight to hell if he was leading the way.  The word gravitas is frequently mentioned when describing Neeson's recent action persona, but even beyond that, he delivers one of his finest performances here.  I'm wondering if it's Neeson that brought out the best in Carnahan (the two previously worked together on THE A-TEAM).  I certainly get a sense that Neeson trusts Carnahan--it's slowly revealed in fragmented flashbacks throughout that there is deep sadness and an overwhelming tragedy in Ottway's past, and it's a sadness that Neeson knows only too well in his own life.  In these moments, I don't think Neeson is acting.  It's often conveyed without words or dialogue, just in brief flashes of an image.  It's a brave, frequently soul-baring performance by Neeson, and Carnahan clearly respects him. For a filmmaker as gregariously bombastic as Carnahan has been in the past, this is a huge step forward.  But it's not just Neeson--all of the actors are top-notch here, especially WARRIOR's Frank Grillo as Diaz, who tries to challenge Ottway's authority in an obvious comparison to the way the alpha wolf tries to put down a challenge to his own leadership.  It's Neeson's show, but all of the characters get their turn in the spotlight for the actors to shine.

It's not front-to-back perfection:  the CGI is a little distracting at times, usually in the form of fake breath (or no breath, which happens frequently), and I don't think filmmakers will ever realize that CGI fire looks like shit.  The CGI wolves (with animatronic work by KNB) are very nicely done and quite effective.

THE GREY is a grueling, intense experience.  Neeson proves again that he's the best at what he does, and Carnahan has shown us that he's finally grown up.  THE GREY is a great action film.



And, just because this never gets old: