( CNN ) -- Writer-director Joe Carnahan wisely gets back to basics in `` The Grey '' after the over the top CGI heroics of `` The A-Team . '' In their last collaboration , Liam Neeson fell out of the clouds in a tank and lived to tell the tale . This time he 's stranded in the arctic wastes of Alaska when the plane transporting a crew of rugged oil drillers crashes in the back of beyond . The half dozen survivors are in bad shape , with few supplies , no chance of contacting the outside world and little hope of rescue . They have sub-zero temperatures to contend with , howling winds and snow , and the only source of meat on the horizon -- a pack of timber wolves -- has its own ideas about the pecking order on the food chain . Neeson quickly emerges as the leader of the men . He 's a head taller than anybody else and maybe a head smarter , too . He also knows wolves , so he says -- though it 's hard to believe anyone on this movie could claim as much . Any animal expert could tell you that timber wolves are more likely to run in the opposite direction than give chase to humans . Compared to a grizzly bear , your typical North American grey is a pussycat . That 's not the kind of animal Neeson and company bump into . These puppies are of the big , bad variety : vicious , lethal and relentless . Neeson -- perhaps rashly -- decides to abandon the wrecked plane and strike out south , into the woods . He 's followed by a rapidly depleting line of the walking wounded , and a posse of salivating lupus . This is bare bones storytelling in more ways than one , though Carnahan ca n't resist injecting stray purple pronouncements of existential angst ( I kept hoping that one of the guys would get hold of the letter Neeson has stashed in his pocket , the one where he tells the girl who got away he 's exiled himself to live with the dregs of humanity , `` Ex cons , misfits , a******* ... men unfit for mankind '' ) . Fortunately he 's a better filmmaker than he is a screenwriter . Impressively shot in northern British Columbia by the talented Masanobu Takayanagi , the movie feels grounded and real even when the dialogue ( and the angry wolf pack ) rings false . Interspersing exciting action sequences with tense slogs through hostile terrain , the movie has the structure of a classic western , with wolves standing in for outlaws or Indians . It 's old hat , but it still plays . Neeson 's in his element as the raw alpha male who reluctantly takes the others in hand . They include an angry , macho Latino ( Frank Grillo ) , a boring nice guy ( Dermot Mulroney ) and an ailing black guy ( Nonso Anozie ) who might as well have `` Kibble '' tattooed to his forehead . Even though Carnahan never digs up anything very surprising about these stock characters , the terse , shape-shifting group dynamics are enough to keep us watching . The film 's single best sequence comes early on . The plane crash -- and the nicely pitched run-up to it , as the passengers ( all men ) stow their bravado and start to grapple with what they might be facing -- is a knockout . Five minutes of pure white-knuckle drama . Even though nothing later comes close to it for enterprise or excitement , `` The Grey '' remains a genuinely gripping survival story and a refreshing change from stale urban action flicks : `` Jaws '' on paws .
`` The Grey '' is impressively shot in northern British Columbia . Liam Neeson 's in his element as the raw alpha male who takes the others in hand . The film 's single best sequence comes early on -- the plane crash .