| Action | Mystery | Thriller |
Director: Jonathan Hensleigh
Producer: David Buelow, Al Corley, Lee Nelson, Shivani Rawat, Bart Rosenblatt, David Tish
Writer: Jonathan Hensleigh
Release Date (Streaming): Jun 25, 2021
Runtime: 1h 49m
SYNOPSIS:
After a remote diamond mine collapses in far northern Canada, a ‘big-rig’ ice road driver (Liam Neeson) must lead an impossible rescue mission over a frozen ocean to save the trapped miners. Contending with thawing waters and a massive storm, they discover the real threat is one they never saw coming.
PLOT:
In THE ICE ROAD, Mike (Liam Neeson) is a truck driver who is once again between jobs after defending his mechanic brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas), an Iraq veteran who struggles with PTSD and aphasia, from bullies. Meanwhile, due north and roughly 400 miles below the Arctic Circle, one of the Katka Diamond Mine tunnels has exploded, leaving several miners trapped and struggling to stay alive. It’s also April, and most of the men who are “Ice Truckers” are either spending their hard-earned winter money in sunnier climes, or else don’t want to risk driving across ice that’s likely to crack and open up, which is why many truckers consider these drives to be “suicide missions.” Unwilling to leave Gurty in a VA Hospital when he sees that the doctors only want to keep him drugged and numb, Mike sees the alert asking for ice truckers willing to deliver the supplies needed to rescue the miners.
He meets with Jim (Laurence Fishburne), another ice trucker working for the mining company who wants to rescue his friends, and soon Mike and Gurty are hired to join the mission. They’re joined by Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), a skilled truck driver when she isn’t in jail protesting White encroachment on Native American lands, whose brother Cody is one of the miners. They’re also joined by Varnay (Benjamin Walker), a seemingly straitlaced actuary for the company. In three semi-trucks each carrying the same cargo needed to rescue the miners, these five begin the journey north. Soon, they learn that not only are the roads dangerous but there’s also a conspiracy at work — one involving the executives of the mine. Somehow, Mike and the others must find a way to get to the mine before the miners die from lack of oxygen, and they must also reveal the conspiracy behind the explosion that trapped them in the first place.
MOVIE REVIEW:
This edge-of your-seat action tale is taut and suspenseful from beginning to end. In The Ice Road, Liam Neeson, in what may be his last action movie, plays Mike McCann, a North Dakota trucker who bounces from job to job primarily because he’s trying to keep his brother Gurty from getting into trouble. Desperate for work and wanting to keep Gurty out of a VA Hospital where he’ll be numb and drugged by uncaring doctors, Mike decides to apply for a job other truckers consider to be a “suicide mission” — a delivery of needed supplies to trapped miners that requires driving along melting “ice roads” in April. From the moment the trucks leave to make the journey north to the diamond mine, the action is unrelenting, with some enjoyable (if not altogether unsurprising) plot twists along the way.
While The Ice Road has its fair share of action movie conventions, there’s as much of a reliance on the story as on the action sequences to sustain audience interest. We know what’s at stake for these characters, and the dialogue is nowhere near as groan-worthy as, for instance, the entire Fast and Furious franchise. While Neeson delivers a fantastic performance, the other leads are also solid throughout, and we also learn that, despite its much-lauded national identity, Canadians are quite capable of being bad guys. If this is Neeson’s last action movie, it’s a terrific way to bow out, as The Ice Road is as thrilling as it is fun.
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