Joe Carnahan’s latest film, THE GREY, which is released on January 27, tells the tale of a group of oil-rig workers, led by Liam Neeson, whose plane crashes in the Alaskan wildnerness. It is a battle against time, as the group try to fend off the elements and a pack of rogue wolves. The soundtrack, made up of original material by Marc Streitenfeld, is a good accompaniment to the tense atmosphere of the movie, but I would be very surprised if anyone left the cinema after seeing this movie and said “You know what my favourite thing was about THE GREY? The soundtrack!”
THE GREY is definitely a film which is in no danger of being upstaged by it’s soundtrack. The original music created by Marc Streitenfeld does the job; it ups the tension, and leaves the viewer in doubt that the characters on screen are in a very dire situation. However, if you were to actually sit down and play the soundtrack alone, in your own home, I doubt you’d get past Track 4. It’s all very…forgettable. I hope no one was planning on making it rich off of this music, because if they were they might have to take out bad credit military loans to pay their rent instead. Each track seems to be even more unremarkable than the last and I can’t see people gathering around water coolers anywhere discussing it. Most of the tracks seem to just blend into one another; none of them “stand out” in any way whatsoever. Although soundtracks are generally not meant to outshine the films they’ve been written for, it doesn’t mean composers shouldn’t try, or at least try to be a bit different or adventurous. As it is, the soundtrack for THE GREY could be the soundtrack for any other action/thriller/serious movie; there’s is absolutely nothing different, or memorable, or unique, about this soundtrack whatsoever.
Track Listing
1. Writing The Letter
2. Suicide
3. You Are Gonna Die
4. Walking
5. Eyes Glowing
6. The Morning After
7. Collecting Wallets
8. Wife Memory
9. Life And Death
10. Lagging Behind
11. Running From Wolves
12. Daughter Appears
13. Last Walk
14. Memorial
15. Alpha
16. Into The Fray
