The Grey

[murdoc]

Liam Neeson vs. the elements and a mean pack of wolves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqP2o62sZMs

In Alaska, an oil drilling team struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. Hunting the humans are a pack of wolves who see them as intruders.

Saw this on the weekend and I thought it was really good. I think it transcends it's genre fairly well and made for a pretty taunt, bleak thriller. There was some really good scenes, one especially after the plane crash where Neeson's character 'comforts" a dying man. I'm going to guess that wolves in reality don't behave the way they do in this film, but I found that it didn't really matter as they aren't even necessarily the most deadly thing the men face.

Worth seeing.

[Merusk]

Wolves are pretty damn smart and cunning pack killers.  What do they do in the film you find beyond belief?

[murdoc]

Wolves are pretty damn smart and cunning pack killers.  What do they do in the film you find beyond belief?

There was a couple 'one on one' scenes that didn't make sense to me. The pack stuff seemed plausible though. I also know nothing about wolves and if they'd kill just for the sake of killing, which is suggested in the movie.

[shiznitz]

Over a perceived violation of territory, maybe.  Would they see humans as competing in that territory?  That's the hump to get over.  I assume this group of crash survivors aren't running around killing elk.  Any story that suggests wild animals hold grudges should be suspect.

[Merusk]

You've obviously never killed a crow.

Those fuckers remember and seek vengeance.  That's something I grew up with as a wife's tale warning from the local farm kids, but looks like there was a study that confirmed it last year.   Ravens, too, as I recall.   I believe that's also why scarecrows were used instead of "murder the fuckers" as a strategy for keeping them away from your crops.

Wolves, I don't know.  I've read about them hunting humans in the forests of Europe but I think that was about competition for resources or as food sources not revenge.

[murdoc]

They explain it by saying that the wolves are killing them as they view them as intruders, but there is a line where Neeson's character says that wolves are one of the only animals to hold a grudge and seek revenge, which seemed like a load of crap.

[Ingmar]

The only part of it I wouldn't believe are the "one of the only animals" part. We're endlessly discovering behaviors in animals that we thought they were too dumb to have, or were exclusive to humans, etc. I've certainly known dogs who held grudges, and  a dog is just a domesticated wolf more or less.

That said it would very much surprise me if there wasn't a bunch of bad science in the movie anyway.

[Sjofn]

Elephants totally hold grudges!

[01101010]

Elephants totally hold grudges!

And women... 

[Chimpy]

Elephants hold women  ?

[Merusk]

Yes, but it's a $20 show in Bangkok.

[Sheepherder]

Wolves actually don't form very large packs except in places where there's ridiculous amounts of game.  They don't kill just for shits and giggles, they will opportunistically kill off other large predators (other wolves included) and/or scavengers to limit competition (including the young).  Most animals are capable of holding grudges.  Behaviorally wolves have some pretty significant difference from dogs: one is an apex predator, the other is a domesticated scavenger.

All that being said, the premise of the movie is shit.  There's a fuckload of corpses at the crash site, but the wolves decide to chase the survivors for days?  Fuck off with that.  Any non-rabid animal will take the easy meal over the hard, after bringing down any single one of those guys (or finding the victims) they'd all hunker down to eat and nap, and even assuming they were pissed a human on foot can easily cross a wolf's territory in a few hours.