Liam and the wolves

If Liam Neeson still insists on this late-career reinvention as an action hero, punching a wolf in the face might be his endgame.

The film in which he commits this unquestionably badass act, “The Grey,” isn’t so much a movie about men fighting wolves as it is a film about wolves devouring men at will.

There’s a certain powerlessness communicated when, despite its often ingenious efforts, a crew of hardened Alaskan laborers is effortlessly killed by these wild dogs. “The Call of the Wild” this is not.

The movie sidesteps any serious commentary on finality or man’s place in nature, opting instead for intermittent, fast-paced wolf attacks cut into long, dreadful shots of the Great
White North.

The greatest achievement of “The Grey” is how straight-faced it manages to play a premise made to look so ridiculous by its own ad campaign. Jokes that they might as well have called the film “Wolfpuncher” are inaccurate, and given Neeson’s successfully steely seriousness, that’s probably for the better.