10 Greatest Cinematic Survivors

5. John Ottway - The Grey

Liam Neeson is a lot of things. He's a Jedi, an assassin, the King of Narnia, the leader of The A-Team and the bloke who trained Batman. Nobody is more prepared in the art of survival than he, and no film does he showcase such credentials better than in The Grey. John Ottway and his men are oil drillers who become stranded in the vast emptiness of Alaska following a plane crash. Teetering on the brink of suicide, he is a man nearing collapse and perhaps not the best candidate for such a feature, but his expert skills see him flourish and prevail against certain odds. Falling victim to a progressive and relentless pack of wolves, Ottway must not only survive singularly (ensuring he doesn't freeze to death, starve to death et al), he also must fend off a vicious, bloodthirsty foe who is hellbent on coming back for more and more. A number of sequences in The Grey are surprisingly poignant; it beautifully projects the symmetry between man and beast - both simply doing what they are programmed to do in any given environment. Despite the wolves being the antagonist, there is an ethereal respect which resonates, and this is perhaps why Neeson's hero is able to surge onwards. It is arresting filmmaking and weighted by a captivating central performance.