“I don’t have a lot of tire left on my own treads.” — Mike McCann in “The Ice Road”
As I was watching Liam Neeson’s latest action movie last night — Netflix’s “The Ice Road” — I imagined how the screenwriter must have devised the film’s concept...
It starts one morning, after a restless night of sleep. The screenwriter pulls himself out of bed, lets out a big yawn, stretches, and stumbles down to the kitchen.
He pours a mound of Fruity Pebbles into a bowl, pops a K-Cup into the Keurig, and flips on the small TV set mounted above the kitchen counter to the The History Channel.
As he swallows a spoonful of sugary goodness, he notices that the reality series “Ice Road Truckers” is airing. At first, he thinks nothing of it. Then, a light flickers in his groggy mind. He points at the screen and says, “This...This right here could make a great action movie!!”
The director/screenwriter of “The Ice Road” is Jonathan Hensleigh. While I don’t know what actually sparked him to write the movie, he is a person of note in the film industry.
If the name sounds familiar, it is likely due to the fact that the 62-year-old filmmaker is the scribe behind films such as “Die Hard With a Vengeance” (1995), “Armageddon” (1998), “Con Air” (1997), “Gone in 60 Seconds” (2000), and “Jumanji” (1995). He cut his teeth writing on George Lucas’s “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV series in the early 1990s.
In my opinion, the 1990s was the last great era for the sort of macho action movies Hensleigh built his career on.
In the intervening years, the genre (at least at the theatrical box office) has largely been the domain of “pop sci-fi” superhero movies, a genre I’ve written about quite a lot on this blog (most recently in my review of “Spider-Man: No Way Home”).
Those who know my movie tastes know of my fondness for the action movies of yore. Movies like “Cliffhanger,” “Die Hard,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Under Siege 2: Dark Territory” (I preferred it over the original “Under Siege”), and “The Rock” (for which Hensleigh did an uncredited rewrite) are all favorites.
“The Ice Road” is a movie crafted in a similar fashion. It feels like something that could have been a hot commodity in the ’80s and ’90s.
In that era, it might have been produced by Joel Silver or Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Michael Bay or Renny Harlin, and starred an icon like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger (maybe even Nic Cage during his prime). It would have had a massive budget that allowed for all the bells and whistles, and played on the biggest screens in North America.
The tagline would have been: “‘Die Hard’ in a Truck.”
While “The Ice Road” might lack some of the amenities afforded by a bigger budget, it still “tries hard.”
Neeson plays Mike McCann, a grizzled truck driver who works in North Dakota with his brother “Gurty” (Marcus Thomas) — an Iraq War veteran who suffers from PTSD and aphasia (loss of ability to express speech, caused by brain damage).
Since 2008’s “Taken,” Neeson has become the go-to guy when you need the action hero equivalent of a weathered leather jacket. He could play a simple insurance agent and it would be entertaining — in fact, he did just that in 2018’s “The Commuter” (read my review).
Mike and Gurty find themselves down on their luck in the early stages of “The Ice Road.” The burden of caring for Gurty has taken a toll on Mike, and he wants his brother to get the help he needs.
But the brothers’ fortunes soon perk up when they hear about the need for ice road truckers in Winnipeg. A mine explosion in northern Manitoba trapped 26 workers, and the operation needs fresh wellheads in order to mount a rescue attempt.
Jim Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne) runs a trucking operation and agrees to lead the supply mission to the mine. Since it is late in the season, most of his existing drivers are unavailable.
So he hires the McCann brothers and a young woman named Tantoo (Amber Midthunder) to drive the other two semis. Along for the ride is an actuary named Tom Varnay (Benjamin Walker), who works for the mine’s parent company.
The drivers will split $200,000 for the mission (if any driver fails to make it, their portion will be reallocated to the other drivers). Despite the Canadian province’s northern latitudes, the conditions on the ice road will be unpredictable due to the time of year.
That’s the setup. It seems like a fairly basic “character vs. nature” structure in the vein of action movies like 1996’s “Twister.”
At first, I wasn’t sure how the story was going to sustain any semblance of suspense (other than weather issues and a running clock). Based on the trailers, I figured it would be ice cracking every five minutes, narrow roads, washed out roads, downed trees, engine trouble, etc.
But Hensleigh found a way to infuse the “human element” into “The Ice Road.” In that regard, it steered in a decidedly more “Die Hard-esque” direction.
One of the sketchy players is Katka General Manager George Sickle (Matt McCoy). I will admit, it was somewhat jarring to see McCoy — a spokesperson for property and casualty insurance company The Hartford — making some of the decisions he did.
At times, the story in “The Ice Road” can feel ludicrous, but its energetic pace largely covers up the imperfections. The movie also looks and feels authentic (relying primarily on practical effects).
In this Netflix featurette, real life truckers react to scenes from the film:
Part of the reason things work is the aforementioned Neeson. He feels right at home playing a blue collar trucker caught in an impossible scenario. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, he played a snowplow driver facing a difficult situation in 2019’s “Cold Pursuit” (read my review).
“The Ice Road” is not exactly high art, but I thought it was a lot of fun. It reminds me of the high-octane action movies I enjoyed in my teens and twenties — I’d like to see more productions return to that form.
Bridget and I had a good time watching “The Ice Road.” I think you will, too!
Additional blog posts on Liam Neeson:
