Liam Neeson a perfect match for pack of predators in ‘The Grey’ - Entertainment, Movies - Air Force Times

Liam Neeson a perfect match for pack of predators in ‘The Grey’

If you’re making a film about men lost in the Alaskan wilderness and threatened by a pack of snarling, hungry wolves, you’re almost obligated to cast Liam Neeson as the leader of the human pack.

With his sharp features, big frame, growly voice and taciturn mien, Neeson is the closest thing to a bipedal wolf left on Hollywood’s A-list now that Jack Nicholson is semiretired.

Neeson is forced to channel every ounce of his inner wolf in “The Grey,” a brutal yet often moving wilderness adventure.

He’s John Ottway, a sniper wrapping up a “job at the end of the world” — protecting the crew of roughnecks at a North Slope oil rig from bears, wolves and any other predators that might make a run at them out of the forest.

As winter sets in, the 40-plus men board a flight back to Anchorage, but the plane goes down en route (in one of the most gripping air crash scenes I’ve ever witnessed on screen).

Ottway and a few others survive, but they’re stranded in the howling, frozen wastes of the Alaskan interior.

Initially, they focus only on the challenge of the weather and their lack of shelter. Then night falls — and a pair of glowing eyes appears in the blackness on the fringe of their pitiful campfire.

Then another. And another. Six. A dozen. Wolves, led by an oversized monster. After making their presence known, they melt back into the dark — for the moment. They’ve scented fresh meat, and they’re not going away hungry.

With little choice, Ottway and a few others begin to trek south as the wolves start to pick them off in swift and savage attacks.

“This is F---ed City,” one roughneck cries despairingly. “Population five and dwindling.”

Director Joe Carnahan builds palpable tension into the increasingly dire situation, while also working in some breather moments to flesh out a few of the characters, notably Diaz (Frank Grillo), a mouthy ex-con with an attitude problem, and Hendrick (Dallas Roberts), a thoughtful type who’s tougher than he looks.

But this is clearly Neeson’s show. Ottway carries a great sadness about him, and we learn why only in bits and pieces, puzzling over his repeated poignant flashbacks to the wife (Anne Openshaw) that he somehow lost — a mystery not fully explained until the film’s final few frames.

Neeson is peerless at playing broken, flawed men who still retain innate honor and nobility, and here he adds another such role to his résumé.

It’s not a perfect movie; some touches defy all credulity. But from its opening scenes to its final faceoff between two glorious alpha males, “The Grey” is an intense parable about how far men will go to survive — and how they choose to face death when survival is no longer an option.