#30 The Grey (2012) Dir. Joe Carnahan

The first great film of 2012 is here. This isn’t just another “The World vs. Liam Neeson” movie despite what the wolf-punching trailers would have you believe, it’s an amazing survival movie that never, stops, fucking, moving. Edge of your seat entertainment at it’s finest and it contains Liam Neeson’s best performance since Schindler’s List. This is the same Joe Carnahan that made Narc, not the silly A-Team incarnation. It’s the work of a filmmaker with something to prove, to prove he can still excite, thrill, chill and entertain the crowd on a big scale. All the cliche genre scenes are there but they are handled with such surprising honesty and refreshing restraint. Carnahan never goes for the cheap tricks to get your emotion, the music doesn’t well up as a character dies and slow motion is saved until the final scene. It has a really gritty, grainy desaturated visual style and it looks like nothing else out in the cinemas right now. This could have been very silly, but it’s likely to be one of the most surprising movies of the year. It’s not often January gives us a film this good. If this is the example 2012 has set itself, it’s going to one hell of a year.