(USA, 116 min.)
Dir. Scott Cooper, Writ. Brad Ingelsby, Scott Cooper
Starring: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson,
Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Willem Dafoe Forest Whitaker.
What a disappointment. Scott Cooper follows his terrific
2009 debut Crazy Heart, which won two
well-deserved Oscars for Best Actor (Jeff Bridges) and Best Song, with the
well-intentioned actors’ showpiece Out of
the Furnace. The only problem is that there doesn’t seem to be much point
to the film besides letting some talented actors let loose. Yes, Out of the Furnace is an intense drama
full of YELLING and ACTING, but filmgoers looking for fine character-driven
drama in the vein of Crazy Heart best
look elsewhere.
Out of the Furnace
takes so long to get anywhere interesting, though, that one feels as if one has
sat through the entirety of Michael Cimino’s three-hour epic The Deer Hunter (which obviously offered
some inspiration for Cooper’s film) before Russell’s story seems to have some
purpose. Some nice guitar riffs in the score by Dickon Hinchliffe add to the
strong sense of place in this attractively working class snapshot of small town
America, while Cooper and cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi give the rusty mill
a place of prominence in the setting, but those too will undoubtedly remind viewers
of the superior Deer Hunter, which
also told of men transformed by violence. Russell mourns his losses and Rodney’s
service is tossed about in a few scenes of key histrionics, but Out of the Furnace doesn’t really use
the futility of war to make a point, nor does the film’s pre-Obama setting
offer much in terms of metaphor. It does, however, make an ironic parallel to
last year’s other clunker Killing Them Softly, which tried to say something with a lethargic pace, excess
violence, and allusions to America’s 2008 turning point, but felt equally
pointless.
Bale is fine in a surprisingly low-key performance and
Affleck is equally good as the war-ravaged brother. Out of the Furnace, however, belongs entirely to Woody Harrelson in
the brief moments that his snarly meth dealer Harlan appears onscreen. Out of the Furnace gives Harrelson a
role on par with his work in 2011’s overlooked Rampart. The calibre of Harrelson’s performance, though, almost
seems out of place given Harlan’s strange prominence in this violent film: he
is the character to whom viewers are first introduced when the film begins, as Out of the Furnace lets the audience
witness Harlan’s drunken fury when he commits an act of senseless violence at a
drive-in movie. He appears only in passing for the next hour or so—during the
period in which the sluggish script builds pointless backstories and subplots—before
returning for the strange and senseless finale. This film might have been great
had it whittled away the subplots with Russell’s ex-girlfriend (Zoë Saldana)
and her new flame (Forest Whitaker) or the lengthy scenes of deer hunting and
carving, which (again) reminds one of a better film.
Out of the Furnace
is a complete mess as Russell eventually puts himself on a vendetta of atonement
and retribution. How murder is his redemption for taking two innocent lives,
one only knows, but the sprawling body count of the film’s violent third act is
just as unwieldy as the focus of the film itself. The film is such a slow burn
that one feels completely smoked out by the time anything happens. There’s a
lot of potential in Out of the Furnace,
yet it feels oddly overcooked and undercooked at the same time. This Pennsylvania-shot drama is ironically cooked Pittsburgh style.
Rating: ★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Out of the Furnace is now playing in theatres.
