The title and plot synopsis of this film naturally reminds me - and surely many others - instantly of that TV-series "Ice Road Truckers" that I watched on Discovery Channel around the years 2007-2010. To be honest, the TV documentary/series was really cool and fascinating for a few episodes, but it got monotonous quite fast and, after two seasons, only the sensationalist-narrator still seemed to believe that something terrible might happen. Weird, in fact, that nobody thought sooner about turning this concept into an action-packed and spectacularly cinematographed thriller? Because, when it's fiction, you can sacrifice heroic truckers and allow for 18-wheel trucks to sink to the bottom as much as you want!
Who else than the mighty Liam Neeson would you expect in the role of hard-boiled, grumpy, persistent, and heroic ice road trucker? Well, actually, the role might as well have been played by either Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, or John Travolta. Since several years, they have all four chosen for a career full of standard but nevertheless entertaining and action-packed thrillers with a lot of violence. Neeson's role? A trucker who - in exchange for a massive sum of money, of course - accepts the immensely dangerous assignment of transporting supplies and an industrial drill towards Northern Manitoba, via frozen rivers and lakes in April (while they're normally only used until March) and reach a collapsed mine before 26 slowly suffocating miners completely run out of oxygen. The deadline is tight, the trip is already perilous, but the plot is further thickened with corporate shenanigans, sabotages left and right, and the fact Neeson must look after his mentally traumatized brother.
"The Ice Road" obviously isn't a great or even highly memorable movie, but it's exactly how I like my Liam Neeson action-movies: fast-paced, occasionally tense, implausible but spectacular, and full of loathsome bad guys in a corporate suit. The best way to describe the film is like a less brilliant version of the great French classic "Le Salaire de la Peur" (or its good William Friedkin remake "Sorcerer"), but then - duh - in a northern hemisphere setting. Sure, you can debate the imposed "woke" influences were needed, or if the vicious corporate tycoons covering up incidents hasn't become too much of a dreadful cliché by now, but you could also simply enjoy the straightforward action footage and the beautiful Canadian landscapes.
