OUT OF THE FURNACE

Out of the Furnace (2013)

Grade: B

Starring: Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shephard

Premise: A steel mill worker trying to guide his loose cannon younger brother onto a better path must deal with strict law enforcement officers and dangerous thugs when his brother goes missing.

Rated R for strong, brutal violence, bloody/disturbing images, strong language and graphic depictions of drug use

Out of the Furnace starts in the most random and least-endearing way possible. The trailers promise an emotion-packed drama about two brothers, blue-collar everyman Russell (Christian Bale) and his younger sibling, tortured Iraq War vet Rodney (Casey Affleck). Yet the movie doesn’t start with either of them. It opens instead with Woody Harrelson, a fine actor who here cashes in on his unique look and unglamorous aura to play a drug-addled thug with a mean streak. This thug—who makes Harrelson’s wisecracking but weary Hunger Games mentor look as jolly as Santa Claus by comparison—rough talks a drive-in-movie date as the movie opens. He insults her, he curses at her, he starts force-feeding her and choking her, and, when a Good Samaritan tries to intervene, he beats the bejeezus out of him. With the man lying bleeding in the dirt, Harrelson’s thug opens his passenger door, flings his date out onto the ground, and then drives off.

It was a gutsy call, opening the movie like that. We’ll see Harrelson’s thug again, and we’ll know what kind of person he is thanks largely to that unnerving character intro, but that scene isn’t directly related to the rest of the plot at all. It’s dark, it’s edgy, and it evokes a slight feel of disbelief—really, they chose to open this movie like that?

That, in a nutshell, is my reaction to Out of the Furnace. With an intriguing premise and a great cast of do-anything character actors, this movie could have been a genuine crowd-pleaser if made in a relatively straight-forward manner. Furnace is instead unevenly-paced, frenetically-edited, and made in such a way that there’s a feeling of disconnect. I was underwhelmed, watching it. I was surprised there wasn’t more dialogue, surprised that the main characters and their relationships weren’t fleshed out more. The movie seemed at times too fast and, at others, too slow. Afterward, however, I found myself thinking back with enthusiasm and interest on some of the dramatic highpoints, some of the dialogue, and some of the acting. In fact, if taken as the sum of all its best parts, Out of the Furnace is a great movie. As a whole, I would say it’s not a movie I’d quickly recommend, but it is one I’d like to see again.

Plot

A lifer at the local steel mill like his dad before him, Russell Baze (Bale) only really has two goals in his life: to start a family with his gorgeous girlfriend Lena (Zoe Saldana) and help his younger brother, Rodney (Affleck), settle down and live a fulfilling life. The former seems like a given until a devastating car accident throws Russell’s life out of whack, resulting in his girlfriend leaving him for the town’s stalwart police chief (Forest Whitaker). The latter soon becomes an obsession—Russell takes his brother in, offers to get him a steady job at the mill, and even goes out of his way to pay some of Rodney's gambling debts. But, one day, Rodney disappears; no one knows where he is. Then the police find the truth and tell Russell: in a desperate effort to siphon off the simmering rage and pain of his wartime experience—and to pay off his debts—Rodney talked local barkeep/gangster Jack Petty (Willem Dafoe) into getting him a bout in a shady bare-fisted boxing ring in the New Jersey backwoods. The rumor is Rodney was then asked to take a dive to win cold-blooded kingpin Harlan DeGroat (Harrelson) some money. But Rodney, full of pride and self-resiliency, has never been one to take a dive. As the days pass and the local police seem to be dragging their feet, Russell decides to go into those woods himself, and do whatever he can to go bring his brother back.

What Works?

Happily, Out of the Furnace did not spill all its secrets in its trailer. In fact, it divulged very few of the main ones; it’s a richer and more emotionally-complex experience than it looked to be. And though the movie feels over-edited—there’s nary a scene in the movie that seems to begin and end in the right place—all the most important images stick, thanks to superb camerawork from head cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi.

The actors all do a lot with a little. Furnace doesn’t feature Christian Bale’s best or most compelling performance, but the actor proves, once again, that he can do pretty much anything; his emotional reaction to his ex-girlfriend’s admission that she’s pregnant by her new boyfriend is a powerful one, a beautiful encapsulation of dreams flushed away. As the tortured younger sibling, Casey Affleck is superb, convincingly conveying years of pain, rage and grief. Based on his work here, I’d say he’s unquestionably the more talented Affleck brother. Harrelson revels in his baddie’s badness, making Harlan one mean, gnarly sonofabitch, and Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe and Zoe Saldana all make memorable impressions in smaller roles.

What Doesn’t Work?

That beginning, for one. No offense to Harrelson or any of the other actors in it, but that was one ugly note to start on, no matter how “true to the character” it may have been. The movie also ends about two minutes later than it should’ve, adding a hint of a loose strand to take the punch out of a great dramatic climax. Furnace could also make do with more dialogue in a few key scenes (particularly one encounter between Bale and Saldana’s characters), and a few other scenes appear to have been added for no real reason. Out of the Furnace is largely a very good movie (as I mentioned, I keep looking back to certain scenes and finding myself impressed), but I can’t shake the feeling that with that cast, and that premise, they could’ve made a really incredible, can’t miss feature.

Content

Lots and lots (and lots) of cursing. Bloody images that include guys pounding each other to a pulp in street fights and a freshly-skinned deer that was the victim of a Baze family hunting trip. Surprisingly, there’s no suggestive material other than a brief cuddle between Russell and Lena, but this is one dark movie, also featuring a few graphic scenes of people preparing/getting buzzed off drugs. In other words, Out of the Furnace isn’t much of a date movie.

Bottom Line

Don’t go in expecting Taken (“give me back my brother now, or I will find you, and I will kill you”); this isn’t an action movie. It can be slow, but with a solid cast and an effective storyline, Out of the Furnace is an admirable suspense thriller.

Out of the Furnace (2013)

Directed by Scott Cooper

Screenplay by Brad Ingelsby and Scott Cooper

Rated R

Length: 116 minutes