{"id":13156,"date":"2025-10-01T15:36:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13156"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:36:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:36:32","slug":"the-ice-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/10\/01\/the-ice-road\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ice Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Ice Road<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong language, sequences of action and violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Max Aruj\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tom Stern\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 25, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Liam Neeson, Marcus Thomas, Amber Midthunder, Benjamin Walker, Laurence Fishburne, Holt McCallany, Martin Sensmeier, Matt McCoy, Matt Salinger, Chad Bruce, Adam Hurtig, Bradley Sawatzky, Marshall Williams, Paul Essiembre, Arne MacPherson, Gabriel Daniels.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0This generation of moviegoers can have their super-powered action heroes and what not. I like my action heroes straight up, old school, no CGI chaser. Young people just don\u2019t get it. If I had a dollar for every blank stare I get when I mention Charles Bronson, I could pay off a fair share of my wife\u2019s credit card debt. The closest actor to him we have today is Liam Neeson who, at 73YO, still has plenty of fight left in him. He might be a bit slower these days, but he\u2019s just as tough.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m slightly embarrassed to admit I haven\u2019t seen all of Liam\u2019s actioners. I rectified that somewhat this past Saturday by watching The Ice Road<\/strong> on Netflix. It\u2019s pretty good. Written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh (2004\u2019s The Punisher), it\u2019s a take on The Wages of Fear, the 1953 French film remade as Sorcerer (1977) by William Friedkin. In it, a group of truckers must travel over miles of ice road to help 26 miners trapped in a mine after an explosion. It\u2019s an extremely treacherous journey fuelled by tension and fear.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mike McCann (Neeson) answers the call for experienced truckers after losing yet another job defending his brother Gurty (Thomas, Kill the Irishman), an Iraqi War vet with PTSD and aphasia, from a**holes. The job entails transporting wellheads to the site of the explosion in Manitoba. It\u2019s not going to be an easy run. They\u2019ll be hauling heavy equipment over miles of ice road that\u2019s starting to melt (it\u2019s April). They can only go so fast due to ice road conditions. Also, they\u2019re in a time crunch. The miners only have about 30-odd hours before their oxygen supply is depleted.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The guy leading the operation is Jim Goldenrod (Fishburne, The Matrix), an expert who earlier expressed doubt about such a mission succeeding. The driver of the third truck is Tantoo (Midthunder, Prey), a hot-tempered Indigenous American whose brother is one of the trapped miners. Also along for the ride is company insurance guy Varnay (Walker, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). He\u2019s just there to supervise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Naturally, the operation doesn\u2019t run smoothly. Would there even be a movie if it did? The drivers run into all the usual problems- e.g. mechanical issues, pressure waves, ice cracking. PLUS, there\u2019s a traitor among them. Somebody wants them to fail. I won\u2019t reveal this person\u2019s identity, but it\u2019s fairly obvious. I will say it isn\u2019t Mike or Ginty. They\u2019re the ones who try to save the day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The original source may be serious, but The Ice Road<\/strong> isn\u2019t. It\u2019s a silly as any other action flick designed to be enjoyed at a weekend matinee. On occasion, it seems to be trying to say something about the ill treatment of vets by society at large. In an early scene, Mike takes Ginty to a VA hospital for long-term care only to become enraged upon learning their idea of treatment is drugging patients. It\u2019s also mentioned briefly that Tantoo is something of an activist for her people. Thankfully, Hensleigh doesn\u2019t dwell on weighty issues like this for too long. He\u2019s more interested in serving up explosions, avalanches, chases and fights. He\u2019s all about the action. You can\u2019t fault a filmmaker for that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The performances are exactly what you\u2019d expect in a dopey action flick. Neeson is great at what he does so there\u2019s no reason to do it any differently than he usually does. Midthunder adds a welcome dose of estrogen bad assery to the proceedings. Thomas does a fine job as the disabled vet who also happens to be a brilliant mechanic. Fishburne excels at playing authority figures and doesn\u2019t disappoint here. It\u2019s too bad he\u2019s given too little screen time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hensleigh effectively divides the time between the truckers, the trapped miners and the baddies trying to sabotage the mission. I like how he brings the story together. The action scenes are well executed. He makes excellent use of the wintry conditions. The editing tends to be wonky, especially in scenes where Neeson punches out some deserving person. Then again, the fight scenes in Bronson\u2019s last few films weren\u2019t all that convincing either. It one of the downsides of old age.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In general, I enjoyed The Ice Road<\/strong>. It\u2019s entertaining in a no-frills kind of way. It delivers action the way we older folks like, blunt and two-fisted. If only it bore the Cannon logo.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ice Road (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Netflix\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong language, sequences of action and violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Max Aruj\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tom Stern\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 25, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Liam Neeson, Marcus Thomas, Amber Midthunder, Benjamin Walker, Laurence Fishburne, Holt McCallany, Martin Sensmeier, Matt McCoy, Matt Salinger, Chad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Ice-Road-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13160,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13156\/revisions\/13160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}