The gas-refinery roughneck workers heading home from Alaska in Joe Carnahan's "The Grey" face disasters of near biblical proportions. When their plane goes down, it crashes onto a tract of uncharted tundra, rips itself asunder, and kills most of the passengers save for a half-dozen traumatized survivors. They have little food, little hope, and are marooned in a gale-force blizzard in which they can barely think, much less act. Also, there are wolves.

The reassuring factor in all this is Ottway, who was the company's hired killer: Before the crash, he had spent his days shooting predators around the perimeter of the refinery, and morosely obsessing about the woman he lost. He knows a lot about wolves, which helps, as does the fact that he's played by Liam Neeson, whose physical authority has always been one of his great assets. One gets the sense that they all might live through it, even if Ottway has to carry them on his back.

Mr. Carnahan has till now been pigeonholed, and rightly, by comedy shoot-'em-ups like "Smokin' Aces" and "The A-Team." But here he is with "The Grey"—certainly an adventure film but one with a spiritual ingredient that is both surprising and fiercely resonant.