The Grey

The Grey - Dir. Joe Carnahan (2012)

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day.

The early part of the year is generally the season for movie goers to catch up on all the best picture nominees as well as a dumping ground for forgettable action flicks and rom-coms. There's a new tradition now with Liam Neeson led action movies being released almost on a yearly basis. There was Taken in 2009 and Unknown in 2011. 2012 follows suit with The Grey with Neeson reunited with Joe Carnahan, the director of The A-Team. The script is based on the short story, Ghost Walker, by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, who also penned the awful revenge thriller Death Sentence. Given the participants, I would have been satisfied with an hour and a half of Liam Neeson punching the fuck out of wolves. Indeed, the money shot of the trailer is Neeson duct taping a knife and broken miniature bottles to his hands as he prepares to dive into battle. Imagine my surprise to find The Grey is far more philosophical and contemplative than one would expect from Joe Carnahan.

Neeson stars as John Ottway, a sharpshooter stationed at an oil pumping station in the remote Arctic. He protects the workers from the wolves living in the surrounding wilds. It's not exactly a noble profession as the station employees are mostly reprobates and desperate men. As Ottway describes them, they are "unfit for mankind." Memories of his late-wife (Anne Openshaw) are the only things keeping him going.

A plane ride to Anchorage turns to disaster when the aircraft is caught in a blizzard and crashes into a snowy wasteland. Ottway assumes leadership of a handful of survivors that include the hotheaded ex-con Diaz (Frank Grillo), the devout family man Talget (an unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney), and the reserved Hendrick (Dallas Roberts). Their journey back to civilization is endangered not only by the harsh elements, but by a pack of vicious wolves. These wolves are stalking the survivors not for food, but for vengeance as they are trespassing on their territory.

What differentiates The Grey from the winter season's cinematic detritus is the existential tone as it deals with faith in the face of a cruel world. There's an overriding sense of the impermanence of mankind, who will always be at the mercy of Mother Nature. These are certainly heady subjects for what Open Road Films has marketed as a standard action movie.

The Grey does offer a visceral experience as the deaths can occur suddenly and without warning. The wolves themselves are like unrelenting creatures from a horror film. One shot features the protagonists face to face with the pack as their eyes glow a stark white against the jet black night sky. Another sequence sees the survivors, forced to trudge through deep snow, helplessly watch as wolves tear apart their friend. Amidst all the brutally, some of the deaths are handled with emotional gravitas. The first one occurs when one man is found in the wreckage bleeding to death. Ottway doesn't bother to comfort him or mince words, he tells the man in a matter-of-fact manner that he's dying and nothing can be done. Despite the survivors being a collection of stock characters, it hits hard when one of them goes.

Liam Neeson has had a long career as a respectable actor, but it's only recently that he's become a top shelf action hero. With his booming voice and imposing 6'4 stature, he definitely has the credibility. As Ottway, Neeson gives a rich performance that's tinged with an unshakeable sadness. It's obvious this was something of a therapeutic role allowing Neeson to work through issues following the death of his wife Natasha Richardson in 2009. There's talk The Grey may be re-released for a run during awards season. Frank Grillo, previously seen as the trainer in Warrior, gives an excellent performance here and is the centerpiece for one of the film's most powerful scenes.

The Grey represents Joe Carnahan's best work, even better than his breakout film, Narc. His direction is still stylish, but almost understated, refraining from his usually overly kinetic tricks. The plane crash is one of the most realistic and harrowing crashes committed to film. After that, we see Neeson lying peacefully next to his wife and underneath a white sheet only for her to be ripped away as he awakens in a snow drift.

The Grey is one of the first great films of 2012, a gut wrenching tale of survival in the vein of Jack London. The ways in which it deals with manhood, spirituality, and the inevitability of death would make Hemingway proud.

Rating: *** (*****)

If you want to read my spoilerific thoughts on the ending, click on the comments section.

The A-Team

The A-Team - Dir. Joe Carnahan (2010)


”…if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them…maybe you can hire…THE A-TEAM!”

The record for adapting old TV shows into successful feature films has been less than stellar. The Fugitive is the only true standout. Several rungs down the ladder are middling efforts like Starsky and Hutch and Miami Vice. Dwelling in the basement are truly terrible movies such as Land of the Lost, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Dukes of Hazzard. Joining the ranks of big-budget Hollywood remakes is The A-Team which finds itself somewhere in the middle. It’s certainly not high-brow cinema, but it is pure popcorn entertainment. The A-Team manages to capture the campy overtones and ludicrous elements of the original series. In return, the movie version asks nothing more from its audience than to turn off their brains and not over think a non-stop barrage of nonsensical action sequences.

A movie version of The A-Team has been in development for well over a decade. It’s taken so long that the team was originally changed from Vietnam vets to veterans of the Gulf War. Later, they were stationed in the Middle East just before the Iraq invasion. Now, they’re station in Iraq at the time of the troop withdrawal. All the players remain relatively the same.

Liam Neeson fills the very big shoes of the late-George Peppard as the cigar chomping team leader, Col. Hannibal Smith. Bradley Cooper is Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck and District 9’s Sharlto Copley is their crazy pilot, Capt. H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock. Finally, we have MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as the Mohawk-wearing bruiser, B.A. Baracus.

The film opens with a messy prologue showing how the A-Team was assembled. While working to take down a corrupt Mexican general, Face is captured in the enemy camp. Running through the desert to his rescue, Hannibal just happens to come across B.A. driving his trademark black van. B.A. is stuck south of the border, forced to steal cars as a ransom for his van being held hostage. It doesn’t really make sense since B.A. just beats all the guys up and takes his van anyway. But, logic is a foreign concept in this film. Face is saved and the trio rendezvous at a military hospital where they pick up the nutty Murdock.

Fast-forward eight years and we pick up at the troop withdrawal. The A-Team is approached by a CIA agent named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) requests their help in stealing back printing plates that could be used to counterfeit U.S. currency. Predictably, our heroes are double-crossed by a private security force led by Pike (Brian Bloom, also one of the credited screenwriters). The plates are blown up along with their commanding officer, Gen. Morrison (Gerald McRaney). Now, the team must break out of separate federal prisons and clear their names with Face’s former flame, Capt. Sosa (Jessica Biel), hot on their heels.

Neeson brings more than a sly smile to the picture; he lends a sense of credibility which is sorely needed. Only Neeson can make you buy into a discussion he has about Gandhi with a fellow that has “PITY” and “FOOL” tattooed on his knuckles. The same goes for Cooper and Copley, the latter of whom is hilarious and far more manic than the original Murdock. Jackson feels dispensable as Baracus, No one can replace Mr. T, but Jackson brings nothing unique to the table.

Hannibal’s famous catchphrase has always been, “I love it when a plan comes together.” He coins a new one in the film, ”Overkill is underrated,” and overkill is a specialty of Joe Carnahan, who previously directed Narc and Smokin’ Aces. He’s like Tarantino with A.D.D., but without the encyclopedic knowledge of cinema. Strike that. Carnahan is a knockoff of a Tarantino knockoff (ahem…Guy Ritchie). He furiously whips us about from one over-the-top action scene to another. We watch as the A-Team play the world’s biggest shell game with cargo containers and attempt to steer a tank as it plummets through the air.

The A-Team is the dictionary definition of the Hollywood summer blockbuster. It’s loud, dumb, and goofy fun for the undemanding moviegoer.

P.S. – Make sure to stick around until the credits end for a pair of quick cameos.

Rating: ***

Smokin' Aces

Smokin' Aces - Dir. Joe Carnahan (2007)


Is it possible for a movie to have a ton of stuff happening, but have nothing happen at all? Sure, that movie is called Smokin’ Aces, a tangled web of uninteresting plotlines and anarchic filmmaking. The film is like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World filtered through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino, then filtered again through the lens of Guy Ritchie. Not surprisingly, Joe Carnahan first emerged among the pack of indie filmmakers of the post-Tarantino era. His debut film Blood, Guts, Bullets, and Octane followed in the footsteps of Ritchie’s action/comedy Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Carnahan gained some instant credibility with the gritty crime drama, Narc, which won over Tom Cruise as a fan. Cruise would help Narc gain a wider release and hired Carnahan to direct Mission: Impossible III. The two had creative differences and Carnahan was later replaced by J.J. Abrams. Looking at Smokin’ Aces, it’s easy to see why Ethan Hunt gave Carnahan the boot.

The focal point of the story (such as it is) is a Vegas magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven). Israel’s shows garner a strong following with the local mobsters and pretty soon he’s playing cops and robbers with the big boys. Things don’t work out and Israel is arrested, but promptly skips bail to hide out in a penthouse in Lake Tahoe. Seeing him as a liability, mob boss Primo Sparazza puts a million dollar bounty on the head of Israel. Soon, contract killers and assassins come out of the woodwork to take on the job. Accepting the job are Georgia Sykes (R&B singer Alicia Keys) and her lover Sharice Watters (Taraji P. Henson), master of disguise Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan), the sadistic Pasqual Acosta (Nestor Carbonell), and the psychotic Tremor Brothers, Darwin (Chris Pine, the new Capt. Kirk), Jeeves (Kevin Durand), and Lester (Maury Sterling).

The FBI wants to get their hands on Israel, seeing him as a star witness to topple organized crime. Deputy Director Stanley Locke (Andy Garcia) puts agents Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and his mentor Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta) on the case. Not to be counted out are a trio of bail bondsmen Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck), Pete Deeks (Peter Berg), and Hollis Elmore (Martin Henderson) who also want to capture Israel. There are still a few other characters that I left out, but I can barely remember half of them. Thank goodness for my old friend Wikipedia.

The first half hour of the film is practically dedicated to exposition. We are methodically introduced to each character and whatever history they have. None of this backstory is particularly interesting or, at least, isn’t told to us in any sort of interesting way. We’re told the Tremor Brothers are neo-Nazi rednecks, but nothing they do or say is any indication that they are neo-Nazis or rednecks. They just dress oddly and carry around big guns and chainsaws. Carnahan seems to be tossing a bunch of goofy caricatures onto the screen to cover up his lack of writing skills. There’s a wacky kid with ADD who practices martial arts and speaks in gangster slang that shows up, if for no other reason than he’s a wacky kid with ADD who practices martial arts and speaks in gangster slang. The same goes for another scene where Bateman’s character wears women’s underwear. I don’t know who he’s supposed to be or what he’s adding to the story, but he’s wearing a bra and panties, so Ha ha ha.

Muddying up the proceedings even further is a subplot involving the cold case murder of an undercover FBI agent. First, the heavy-handed resolution of this B-story can be seen coming from a mile away. Secondly, it feels like something from a different film. In all honesty, I might have enjoyed the film if Carnahan went straight for the jugular and made this an orgy of carnage, bullets, and bloodshed. I could have been happy to check my brain at the door for a battle royal between hitmen and scumbags. Instead, we get this pseudo-FBI thriller/mystery element thrown in to add even more exposition than needed.

I’m shocked that such a hackneyed script was able to acquire such an amazing cast including an unrecognizable Matthew Fox. I’m even more taken aback that Carnahan does absolutely nothing interesting with any of them. Having far too many characters leaves little room for the them to breathe and develop. Not that Carnahan is very interested in that sort of thing, prefering anarchic mayhem and bad jokes.

I’m a big fan of Piven and not just as Ari Gold. I always thought he stood out in the supporting roles he’s played in films like Grosse Pointe Blank and Old School. As Buddy Israel, Piven isn’t so much a humorous character as a man who degenerates both physically and emotionally. However, I couldn’t help but think he could have done more. Reynolds who can display a great, cheeky humor doesn’t get the chance to do any of that here. Andy Garcia is another of fantastic actor wasted in a nothing part as he just sleepwalks through his role. About the one who’s a little more interesting, as an actor and character, is the debuting Alicia Keys as hitwoman Georgia Sykes. She and Tarija Henson add a tough feminine touch to the otherwise testosterone heavy production. It’s too bad they didn’t get meatier scenes. It also doesn’t hurt that Keys looks great in fishnet stockings and thigh-high leather boots.

Smokin’ Aces is about a decade too late to join up with the other Reservoir Dogs, Lock, Stock knockoffs. The film isn’t nearly as hip and cool as it makes out to be.

Rating: * 1/2