Every year, around the awards season, a film gets
released with the kind of A-list actors normally reeled off if you were at the
pub and were asked the question, “What cast would you have in your film?” With
the exception of Wes Anderson’s The Grand
Budapest Hotel, it’s unlikely you will see a film in 2014 with as much
acting clout as Out of the Furnace.
Writer/director Scott Cooper’s follow-up to his Oscar winning debut, Crazy Heart, is another character study
set in the back-roads of America, Cooper once again focusing on people who are
out-of-place in the country that is supposed to be their home.
Out
of the Furnace has a top-rate cast that struggles to fit
all of the names on the film’s poster: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody
Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker and Zoe Saldana – all on fine form. Most
critics have been praising Bale and Affleck, and deservedly so, as brothers
both struggling to make ends meet, frustrated with the lives they are forced to
live, but taking out their anger in different ways. Bale, famous for pushing
the envelope in films such as The
Machinist and The Fighter gives a
toned-down, understated performance as Russell Baze, speaking softly and permanently
exhausted. Affleck, on the other hand, as Rodney, is the other extreme, his rage
constantly threatening to rise to the surface; he is uptight and always anxious.
Special mention has to go to Woody Harrelson, who has
built a career on playing villains and anti-heroes with all-sorts going on
inside their heads, but with Out of the
Furnace he gives one of his very best performances as small-time drug
dealer Harlan DeGroat. The film opens by introducing our antagonist, and for
almost a minute Harrelson is silent, just sitting there, staring. This is an
uncomfortable scene to watch, DeGroat bringing to mind a spring trap getting
tighter and tighter. We know he is going to do something to the poor woman sat
in his car; you’re just waiting for it to happen. DeGroat thinks he is
untouchable, king of his own little empire, but he is more white trash than Don
Corleone.
Saldana, while not getting much in the way of screen time,
stands head-and-shoulders with the rest of the cast, being given the film’s most
moving scene as she tells former boyfriend Bale that she is pregnant with
Forest Whitaker’s child, the two of them reflecting on what they could have had
if life had turned out differently. It is an honest, gentle scene, admirably
played down by both actors.
The problem with Out
of the Furnace is Cooper’s script. It’s hard to say what the film is about
as the narrative goes in one direction before wildly swerving off somewhere
else. Bale is sent to prison for drink driving, his girlfriend Saldana leaving
him. Affleck has been chewed up and spit out by the U.S. army, living in limbo
and wondering what to do with the rest of his life, descending into the dingy
world of bare knuckle fighting. This is followed by the second half, where Bale
takes the law into his own hands and wages a one man war against Harrelson. The
film feels like a series of sub-plots rather than one narrative that sees its
protagonists change in some way. It’s a respectable two hours, but very rarely
do you feel engaged with the two lead actors. This should be a weighty,
emotionally draining watch, but because Out
of the Furnace takes so long to become a vigilante film, trying its hand at
different narratives and not spending enough time on any of them, it is nowhere
near as sharp or elaborate as Cooper intended.
Out
of the Furnace is an angry film, focusing on those living
below the poverty line, left behind by the rest of America. Everything that
Cooper highlights, small industrial towns lined with boarded up streets, where
the only hope is to leave for somewhere else, is all valid, but Out of the Furnace’s message feels more
like a murmur than a blood spitting rant. Cooper’s latest is worth seeing for
the performances alone but, due to a muddled script, is nowhere near as gristly
or heartfelt as it deserves to be.
3 out of 5
Matt
