Unhanged

 

"The Ice Road" is a 2021 film featuring Liam Neeson (who stars as a broadly similar character in "The Grey") and Laurence Fishburne (a.k.a. Morpheus from "The Matrix"). I admit that I didn´t like the film. It feels dragging and boring, despite the constant action. Or precisely for that reason? Also, it feels unrealistic. Now, that may be a meaningless criticism of a fiction story, but I get the impression that "The Ice Road" is supposed to be realistic, so obviously it´s a fail when it doesn´t. The actors (except for Neeson) feel "wrong", too. The bad guys don´t look particularly evil, for instance. 

But sure, the above is subjective...

The plot is set in North Dakota, USA and Manitoba, Canada. 30 workers in a Manitoban diamond mine get trapped underground due to a mysterious explosion. To get them out, the engineers at the site need a well-head for their drilling equipment. The only way to get the well-head to the mine in time is by truck (called "rig" in the film). The catch is that the trucks have to drive miles across a frozen lake and then cross an equally dangerous bridge. Unsurprisingly, the ice is pretty thin during spring time.

Even worse, the mining company doesn´t really want to save the miners, since that would expose the *true* reason for the explosion. The rescue mission is just a PR stunt, and is meant to fail, with one of the "rescuers" being a saboteur whose mission is to kill the truck-drivers and dispose of the well-heads. Unfortunately for the hired assassin, the drivers (one of them a Cree woman whose brother is trapped inside the mine) turn out to be pretty hard boiled and have no intention of leaving their mortail coils! 

"The Ice Road" received mixed reviews by critics, but somebody must have watched it (and liked it), since a sequel is currently in production in Australia of all places. Perhaps with the unhanged Irishman Neeson in the lead role?