MOVIE REVIEW: Out of the Furnace

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DF-00425.CR2

Published Apr 4, 2014

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OUT OF THE FURNACE

DIRECTOR: Scott Cooper

CAST: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Sam Shepard, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker

CLASSIFICATION: 16 DLV

RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes

RATING: ***

 

THE UNFORGIVING back roads and rusted-out mill towns of Appalachia provide the bleak backdrop and emotional landscape of Out of the Furnace, a well-acted, beautifully filmed, utterly depressing chronicle of revenge and thwarted dreams.

Anchored by compelling performances from Bale and Affleck, the film may have taken its title and setting from Thomas Bell’s 1941 novel Out of This Furnace, about Braddock, Pennsylvania’s immigrant community, and the history of unionisation.

But director Cooper, with co-writer Brad Inglesby, sets his story squarely in the recent past, when Bale’s character, Russell Baze, works in a steel mill on the brink of closing while his brother, Rodney (Affleck), prepares for yet another tour in Iraq.

Out of the Furnace transpires over several years, during which the fortunes of the brothers diverge and overlap, most notably when a menacing meth dealer and bare-knuckle boxing impresario named Harlan DeGroat comes to town. Played with terrifying intensity by Harrelson, DeGroat is a sadistic, almost feral figure, who hails from New Jersey’s Ramapo Mountains, as lawless and god-forsaken a place as any redoubt in the Wild West.

Braddock, where much of Out of the Furnace was filmed, emerges as a relatively civilised refuge, where Russell quietly tries to rebuild his life after a tragic mistake amidst the crumbling remnants of a once-thriving town.

Cooper, who directed Crazy Heart a few years ago, once again evinces a gift for conveying atmosphere, framing and composing his shots to lend the film a reserved, even stately, air of dignity. And he knows how to get the best from his actors (Jeff Bridges, who won an Academy Award for his performance in Crazy Heart, might agree).

Affleck delivers a searing portrayal of a young man who pushes himself to the punishing physical limit in search of money and catharsis.

Bale’s part may not be as showy, but at least one moment – when Russell hears a pivotal piece of news on one of Braddock’s bridges – could stand the test of time as a mini-master class in the art of screen acting.

Shepard, Dafoe, Saldana and Whitaker round out an outstanding supporting cast in a story that evokes The Deer Hunter in its depiction of post-war trauma in a Pennsylvania town, as well as Winter’s Bone in its gothic, sometimes laboured portrayal of what happens when a society has abandoned its working class.

There are good men in Out of the Furnace, as well as bad men, and sad men and stupid men – but even the best of them have blood on their hands, usually their own.

Even when it descends into self-consciousness in a lurid final act, the film effectively brings viewers into a space where whatever people had to lose was either squandered or stolen. – Washington Post

If you liked, Contraband or The Frozen Ground, you will like this.

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