Ice Road
A mine collapse in Manitoba Canada traps 26 miners below the surface. To get them out, it requires large drilling equipment too big to fly in. The CEO enlists Jim Goldenrod, a veteran trucker to assist.
Jim hires brothers Mike and John “Gurty” McCann to travel along with himself, the no nonsense Tantoo – and Varney, the insurance agent for Katka – the company who owns the mine.
To travel from Winnipeg up to Manitoba, the must trek along the dangerous “Ice Roads” which have begun to thaw in the April weather.
But along the way, it seems that the elements are not all the dangers on the road.
Cast/Characters
Liam Neeson is at his usual ‘Taken era’ – with yet another “every-man” thrown into unbelievable circumstances that he must circumvent.
Marcus Thomas is solid as Gurty, an army vet suffering from PTSD and now aphasia due to his injuries.
Amber Midthunder has an almost apathetic approach to Tantoo. Whether this was a directors choice, but it comes across frustrating to watch, as she seems almost bored at times.
Laurence Fishburn plays Jim, and doesn’t really add too much to the overall plot. His character was really only added to have a ‘star’ attached to it.
Breakdown
I actually didn’t hate the narrative build up to get towards the “action” – with the mine collapse, the threat of the miners losing oxygen, (the parts can’t be flown in), and the truckers setting off on the dangerous roads.
There is even the miners underground having their own narrative where they discuss ‘culling’ their numbers of the sick in order to lengthen their oxygen supply.
The first 40 minutes were the better part of the film, with the objectives created, and even revealing that there was a traitor in the mix (even *** spoiler *** killing off poor Jim).
I worried at the beginning when we were introduced to Gurty that they were going to have a poor representation of special needs, but as the film progressed we discovered he suffered from aphasia – and was quite gifted as a mechanic.
It didn’t really work that they were brothers, as Gurty is clearly American, and Mike was clearly Irish.
The bad guy motive was rather ordinary – with one of the executives being the cause of the explosion by budget cutting. Instead of being ‘discovered’ – hires a hit-man to kill the people delivering the parts to save the miners… couldn’t they have… just not hired anyone?
A nice score with good cinematography and settings – don’t help the silly second and third act – and the eventual villain takedown is completely underwhelming considering he is the cause of a couple of prominent character deaths. Poor Gurty.
Unfortunately some Emotional moments near the ending don’t really do much, and try too hard.
Overall
Not the worst action yarn I’ve reviewed, by far from the best. Neeson is fine, but this is an average film in his filmography.
2.5/5