John Ottway works as a sharpshooter at a remote Alaska oil facility, where he protects the crew from the grey wolves that often approach the site. After a painful personal night, Ottway boards a flight with fellow workers bound for Anchorage. A mechanical failure leaves him with a handful of survivors in an icy wilderness, with no prospect of immediate rescue. They soon realize they are on land claimed by a wolf pack that is watching and stalking them, and the bitter cold turns every choice into a matter of life or death. The film follows the group's struggle to stay alive, and the friction among men who hold very different views on how to survive and what faith means.

How it was made

The film brought together director and co-writer Joe Carnahan, who wrote the screenplay with Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, author of the short story it is based on, with producers Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, the latter credited as executive producer. Liam Neeson, who had worked with Carnahan on The A-Team (2010), ended up in the lead after Bradley Cooper, first cast in a role originally conceived as much younger, was replaced. Shooting took place from January to March 2011 over roughly forty days, though the Alaskan setting was largely recreated in Smithers, British Columbia, with several scenes filmed at its airport. Carnahan also shot an alternative ending showing Neeson fighting the alpha wolf, which he never intended to use and which was slated for the deleted scenes.

Reception and legacy

The film opened in the United States on January 27, 2012, to generally positive reviews, with praise for its philosophical themes and for Neeson's performance. It earned a Metacritic score of 64 out of 100, and audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a B−. It grossed about $81 million worldwide. Beyond its commercial performance, it is often cited as a survival thriller that pairs action with a meditation on faith, grief and the fear of death, and as one of Neeson's most recognised roles in the action genre of that decade.