Having rescued several members of his family, fought off wolves and gotten embroiled in epic public transport outings, it was only a matter of time before Liam Neeson faced his ultimate adversary: frozen water. A decade on from helming Kill the Irishman, director Jonathan Hensleigh teams up with the Irishman who doesn’t seem capable of being killed.
Following an explosion at a remote mine in Manitoba, 26 miners are trapped and in need of rescue. After being fired from a trucking job, Mike (Neeson) and his PTSD suffering brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) volunteer for the mission to deliver the wellheads needed to get the miners out. Necessitating a trip along deadly ice roads, their efforts are stymied by actuary Varnay (Benjamin Walker) and the corporate forces he works for.
The premise, which sits somewhere in the comfortable middle ground between Wages of Fear and Speed, is simplicity itself. Following a brief period of getting the Dirty Dozen together (or in this case, the filthy four), it’s a straight non-stop bull run to their final destination. Of course, it isn’t long before the first of several accidents occurs, as anybody who has watched any of the 11 seasons of Ice Road Truckers could attest.
While Hensleigh gives cinematographer Tom Stern (a regular collaborator with Clint Eastwood) some breathing room at the start, providing audiences with some genuinely breathtaking shots of the area in and around Manitoba, once the action starts there’s little stopping it. From tipping trucks to frozen falls, Neeson’s Mike “takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’” (that’s a direct quote) as it all builds to a fist fight in the snow. At its apex, the old chestnut of a crumbling bridge is juxtaposed with a clash of masculinity in the snow, and it’s literally the whitest thing you’ll see on screen this year.
Neeson takes it all in his stride, quipping his way through the very particular set of screen skills he’s confining himself to these days. While Laurence Fishburne is criminally underused, and Marcus Thomas’s aphasia afflicted character is a wee bit problematic, props need to go to the casting of Amber Midthunder (Legion, Hell or High Water) as a deceptively tough trucker who goes the distance.
THE ICE ROAD might feel like a film that’s been assembled from component parts, and previous used ones at that, but it ultimately comes together in a pleasing way. Like the titular ice roads, it’s in constant danger of careening off the side but somehow manages to stay on the straight and narrow and deliver its goods on time and under budget.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Jonathan Hensleigh | WRITER: Jonathan Hensleigh | CAST: Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne, Holt McCallany, Marcus Thomas, Amber Midthunder, Benjamin Walker | DISTRIBUTOR: Rialto Distribution | RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 13 August 2021 (AUS)
