Review: 'The Grey' is a spellbinding tale

Cast: Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney

Director: Joe Carnahan

The world is inhabited by people who seem alive, but are really like zombies, merely existing than living. Many, bogged down by the weight of their pain, want to die.

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  Have a look at the Hollywood films being released on May 25, 2012 in India.

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  Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld 'Men in Black 3' is being released in May 25, 2012 in India.

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  Star cast of the film includes Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jemaine Clement, Michael Stuhlbarg and Emma Thompson.

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  'Men in Black 3' is a science fiction film.

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  'Men in Black 3' will be released in 2D and 3D format.

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  It is the third film in the 'Men in Black' series.

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  First 'Men in Black' film was released in 1997.

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  'Men in Black II' was released in 2002.

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  The MIB series is extremely popular across the world.

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  Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones play secret MIB agents in the series.

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  Their unusual ways of saving the world from aliens is what their fans love.

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  The film is based on the Malibu / Marvel comic book series 'The Men in Black' by Lowell Cunningham.

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  Fans have high expectations with the film.

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  With nearly no competition from Bollywood this week, MIB 3 has a bright chances to make it big.

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  Watch out for the 'Men in Black' this week.

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  This film is also being released this week.

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  Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo and Dermot Mulroney are in the star cast of the film.

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  It has been directed by Joe Carnahan.

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  'The Grey' is an action, thriller.

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  So, which film are you watching this week?

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Watch \'The Grey\' if you are a lover of nature and of films that are more soulful than mere survival films.

Writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (of the short story 'Ghost Walker' on which the film is based and scriptwriter) and co-writer and director Joe Carnahan put seven of these men in a barren desolate landscape, their brute masculinity in conflict with nature and its beasts - wolves - to give us a film that is a triumph of cinema.

After a plane crash strands them in Alaska, seven survivors led by Ottway (Liam Neeson) try to find their way back in the snow, even as a pack of wolves hunt them down, one after another.

'The Grey', at a very basic, crude level, has got all the elements of a survivor, man-vs-nature flick: infighting men, ravenous animals, a near barren landscape, nature-vs- human nature and a flickering between hope and despair for both the people in the film and the audience.

Director Joe Carnahan is a man in command of his medium. Thus, while you are wondering whether our protagonists will survive, rather how many and which of them will survive, he delivers something entirely else.

For the true question is not whether these men survive. It is whether their spirits do. The point is not as much about the survival of the body, as it is about the soul.

Thus, instead of assuming the survival instinct of his protagonists, Carnahan makes them question their very existence.

Out there in the wild, fighting for survival, the men are stripped down to their bare essentials. Their souls and their pretences are laid bare. And hopefully, so is the viewers'.

Depending upon how you look at it, the ambiguous ending makes for a perfect finale to a beautiful film. The sound and the stunning cinematography by director of photography Masanobu Takayanagi accentuate the atmosphere of the film.

Liam Neeson, always a director's actor, delivers a power-packed performance as a man weighed down by the loss of a loved one. The other characters play their part beautifully as well.

Watch this one if you are a lover of nature and of films that are more soulful than mere survival films.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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