I’m not sure I would ever want to see it again, or at least any time soon, but I think Joe Carnahan’s outdoor survival saga, The Grey, is pretty good. It is appropriately rugged, and bloody, and downbeat. It is far more realistic than another Alaskan survival film that I really like, The Edge (1997), with a great deal of emphasis on the mental aspects of staying alive in the frozen wilderness. It is smartly filmed, well acted and brimming with the stark beauty of nature at its most raw. But it’s not exactly a day at the beach watching it.

A group of tough oil refinery men are flying south when their jet goes down (and this airliner crash is very vivid, and scary as hell for anyone who has ever experienced anxiety in the air). Only a handful survive, and a security expert (Liam Neeson) takes charge, since nobody else seems to have the slightest idea how to survive the brutal cold. Complicating matters is the appearance of wolves. Predatory wolves that immediately begin the task of weeding out the weak, and the foolish. Neeson leads the group into the woods, where their number diminishes every twenty minutes or so in convincing, barbaric fashion.

The film’s biggest asset is its sense of place, which Carnahan develops through location filming, compelling landscape cinematography and a mixture of closeups of the actors against long shots of the vast wilderness they are traversing. The other asset of note is the acting of Liam Neeson, who is solid as always, and Frank Grillo, who portrays Diaz. I didn’t like Diaz at all for a while, but his character undergoes the greatest transformation and attains a nobility that really sparks the drama. I love the way Carnahan handles Diaz and the relationships that Diaz has with the other men.

Ultimately, however, it is very downbeat. For just a hint of hopefulness stay past the credits for one last shot, but even that, I think, represents just a brief respite for the final man standing. I credit Carnahan and company for crediting nature with the upper hand in this battle, but as I said at the beginning, I’m not sure I ever want to see it again; once seems quite enough.  ✰ ✰ ✰.  2 Feb. 2012.