This is an intriguing riff on 1953’s The Wages of Fear: Instead of hauling hazardous cargo, these truckers are traveling on a hazardous highway.
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| Mike (Liam Neeson) and Tantoo (Amber Midthunder) watch in horror, as an expanding pattern of cracking ice rips toward their trucks. |
Events begin deep underground, when part of a Northern Manitoba diamond mine collapses, trapping a couple dozen miners. Rescue requires specialized, heavy-duty wellheads that aren’t on site, and can’t be delivered via plane. Speed also is of the essence, as the miners — able to communicate topside, by rapping Morse code on an exposed pipe — have limited oxygen.
The sole option is to haul the equipment with big rigs, and the fastest route — the only route that’ll make it in time — is the “ice road” across frozen Lake Winnipeg.
In the dead of winter, that wouldn’t be a problem. But it’s early spring, and the frozen ice isn’t nearly as thick; it may not be solid enough to handle the weight.
Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne), the trucking operator in charge, puts out a call for seasoned drivers willing to risk their lives. By coincidence, just across the border in North Dakota, Mike (Liam Neeson) and his brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) are between jobs. Steady employment eludes them, because Mike tends to beat the crap out of anybody who teases Gurty, who suffers from PTSD impairment.
Goldenrod isn’t in a position to be choosy, particularly when Gurty reveals genius mechanical talents. The only other taker is Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), a feisty young Cree woman with a tendency to get arrested while participating in First Nations protests. She’s also a highly capable big rig driver, and determined to participate because her brother Cody is one of the trapped miners.
The plan involves triple redundancy: three trucks — Goldenrod driving the third one himself — each carrying the necessary equipment. Ergo, only one needs to make it.
(One could argue that three heavily laden trucks are much more likely to break the ice than a single vehicle, but you can’t apply that sort of logic to this sort of story.)
The little group is augmented at the last moment by Varnay (Benjamin Walker), an insurance actuary responsible for risk assessments for Katka, the company that owns the diamond mine; he joins Tantoo in her cab.
Needless to say, everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. And then some.
The story’s heart is the relationship between Mike and Gurty. Neeson and Thomas handle this with welcome sensitivity, the former’s gruffness balanced by the latter’s gentler nature. Thomas’ performance is particularly nuanced; there’s a strong sense that Gurty is fully aware of his limitations, and the trouble it has caused them both, and feels guilty about it.
At the same time, Gurty’s jovial nature always puts a smile on his brother’s face. Gurty also is unflappable, and never panics in the clutch; each fresh crisis is merely a problem to be solved.
Mike, otherwise, is a typical Neeson character: hard-bitten and hard-charging. Fishburne’s Goldenrod emerged from the same mold, and both men look persuasively capable behind the wheel of a big rig.
Midthunder, a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux tribe, lends a welcome note of diversity. Tantoo is aggressive, unapologetically forthright, and not about to tolerate cracks regarding her heritage; Midthunder radiates cultural pride.
This immediately puts Tantoo at odds with Varnay, a racist clod with nothing good to say about “those people.” Walker makes him a stereotypical corporate weasel: a guy we love to loathe.
Such sidebar elements — racism, intolerance, compassion for PTSD — are nice to see, in a genre usually known for nothing beyond macho bluster. Hensleigh also dangles occasional clues that imply corporate malfeasance (often a staple, in such stories).
Holt McCallany and Martin Sensmeier make the most of their brief moments as, respectively, Lampard and Cody: the only two miners granted personalities (or much in the way of dialogue).
Hensleigh and editor Douglas Crise keep the pacing taut, and cinematographer Tom Stern grants us a strong sense of this rugged land’s early spring beauty.
I’m pretty sure various laws of physics are violated capriciously along the way, but — again — you gotta just roll with it. Hensleigh maintains a continuous level of tension and suspense, and that’s the most important ingredient.
One serious complaint, however, in an otherwise acceptable script: Hensleigh throws in a climactic hiccup that’s unnecessary, shamefully mean-spirited, and would have prompted jeers in a crowded movie theater. I cannot imagine what he was thinking.
Otherwise, this is a satisfying ride, given its genre limitations.
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