Out of the Furnace saddens me. It’s a movie that fights so hard to be great, only to wind up stranded in some middling zone of effectiveness. It has a concept and story that I want to work, told by a cast and crew of artists whom I almost uniformly like or love and want to succeed. But the movie is rote and unsurprising. It goes through every expected motion without even trying to put a new spin on things. It’s not just less than the sum of its parts – it’s an intriguing recipe turned into a satiating but bland meal.
Christian Bale plays Russell Baze, a salt-of-the-Earth steelworker living in the recession-wrecked town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. His placid existence is shattered after a bout of drunken driving results in a fatal car accident, landing him in prison for five years. While he’s locked up, his father dies, his girlfriend Lena (Zoe Saldana) leaves him, and his soldier brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) cycles through several more tours of duty in the Middle East. By the time Russell gets out, Rodney is a frayed tangle of nerves, making ends meet by participating in underground bare-knuckle boxing rings. Eventually, Rodney incurs the ire of local crime lord Curtis DeGroat (Woody Harrelson) and disappears. Russell dives into the seedy Appalachian underworld in the hope that he might save his brother.
The strongest element of the film is its sense of place. It was filmed entirely on location in Braddock, and the eastern mountain country isn’t a setting we see too often. It has the feel of grit under the fingernails, a true-blue-collar atmosphere that Hollywood productions have very rarely been able to capture well since the ’70s ended. Of course, back then, that sense of authenticity was in the service of stories that were down-to-Earth, which Out of the Furnace certainly isn’t.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with using verisimilitude as a vector for heightened storytelling. Here, though, the pulpy crime drama overwhelms the observational details about small town life and trying to readjust to it, making Braddock strangely generic. Compare this with the pitch-perfect intertwining of place and plot in Winter’s Bone, or even this year’s Blue Ruin, and Out of the Furnace‘s local color can’t help but feel like little more than an affectation.
Bale does what he always does, disappearing into his role and looking like he’s lived in Braddock his whole life. As Russell, he exudes reserved decency and strength. Willem Dafoe gives a solid supporting turn as a bookie who’s in way over his head with debt. Sam Shepard is reliably the stolid paternal figure, playing Russell and Rodney’s uncle. They’re more at ease than the rest of the cast.
Affleck is off his usual game, playing much more broadly and loudly than he has before, too often blatantly screaming all the things his character is feeling. Harrelson is likewise over-the-top, a typical bulldog gangster without much to distinguish him from any other.
Then there’s Zoe Saldana and Forest Whitaker, who aren’t so much bad as they are left bereft of anything interesting to do by the script. Lena exists as a symbol of what Russell has lost in his time in prison and nothing else, and the few scenes they share together reinforce this and do little else. Whitaker plays her new boyfriend, who also happens to be the chief of police, meaning that he inevitably confronts Russell once his quest to find Rodney clashes with the law. There is nothing to him beyond being ineffectual, the rule-bound mirror to Russell’s more rugged, more manly individualism.
Out of the Furnace seems bound to the conventions of crime and revenge tales to the point where everything in it works toward those conventions without much regard to thematic cohesion. It’s a story about one brother trying to take care of the other that doesn’t say anything about fraternity; a story about a man trying to rebuild his life that doesn’t tie that in with what happens to him at all. Russell’s crime is one of carelessness, so it’s not as though there’s a danger that he’ll fall into old, dark habits in his hunt for Rodney. I’d actually rather have watched Bale wrestle with his guilt over causing two deaths with a stupid decision. Sidelining that grief to a single scene, as the film does, is a baffling move.
There’s nothing on this movie’s mind, though it acts as if there is. One beat that is played twice in the story sees Russell training a hunting rifle on a target (The first time it’s a deer, the second a person), with the question dangling of whether he’ll pull the trigger. But there’s no actual connection between these two scenes. His choices in each scenario (In one instance, he shoots. In the other, he doesn’t) have little bearing on how he develops as a character beyond the most shallow sense of “symmetry.” This is sloppy stuff.
Masanobu Takayanagi’s cinematography is crisp and capable. Director Scott Cooper and editor David Rosenbloom ensure that every action comes across clearly. The cast is trying. Cooper and co-writer Brad Ingelsby’s screenplay hangs these elements in loose orbit instead of drawing them together. Pity the empty film is a sore disappointment.
2 thoughts on “‘Out of the Furnace’: A Sore Disappointment”
I respectfully disagree with your overall picture of this motion picture. I do agree that Casey Affleck was a bit broad in his portrayal of a battered soldier. But I would also say good luck capturing the psychological despair of severe PTSD, which occurs not just from war but also from another one or two of his characters’ (for lack of a better word) “passions” (i.e. gambling, bare-knuckle street fighting). Affleck’s portrayal makes it clear he is a man not in control of his faculties, not unlike his foil, Harrelson’s character.
This movie is full of characters seemingly not in control of their respective destinies. Harrelson is a drug addict, a product of his rough upbringing, and a truly twisted individual to the point of being a kind of animal. Though he looks to be in control, he is really more of a reactionary individual. Alcohol provides a “fuel” for that as we see in the 2nd-to-last scene with Willem Defoe’s character. The guy takes a swig of beer, considers the deal being “done,” is rejected, and then swigs the rest of the poison. His medicine to motivate murder.
Even the Zoe Saldana character was a victim to fate’s fortunes. In an uncaring town she chooses a polar opposite of her true love, a man who she can count on to be there. A man who is visibly grotesque, sweaty, pock-marked, asymmetrical, and fat. But a man who has a handle on right, wrong, and the law. I reject your underlying premise that the Saldana character ought to represent more than a symbol of our protagonist’s loss but, more importantly, I feel she played some crucial moments delicately, precisely. Her’s was a yeoman’s performance.
Speaking of yeoman, Christian Bale was outstanding. His physical work, his nonverbal communication is a marvel. The two scenes you seem to dismiss so easily… at least appreciate the beauty of each scene, appreciate what the film is saying or attempting to say. At the very least the scene with the buck is a kind of foreshadowing for the finale. But also notice the dialogue of Casey when he is about to be shot in the head. He asks his murderer to look him in the eye, which the man cannot do. Meanwhile, the buck looks Bale’s character straight on. Bale’s character passes up a great “kill” perhaps because he appreciates the animals integrity, perhaps as some kind of penance for his drunk driving accident, perhaps because it reminds him of his brother – both veritable animals who confront danger with eyes wide open. That approach ultimately was stupid. Initially it appeared stupid just for Affleck’s character, but notice the slow pan to the buck antlers. Bale didn’t get the creature, but his hunting partner did. This shows another parallel – that of consequences – that if you aren’t killed the first time flirting with death, you sure as hell should have and likely will if you keeping testing probability.
Overall, I enjoyed your critique if only because it got me fired up for a rebuttal. If you wish to improve your game, I would suggest avoiding giving “Grades” out to movies. That feels condescending to me. This was definitely not a “C” effort either. I could sooner buy an “F” than a “C” because at least a justification for the “F” would be that “they tried for a home run but ended up striking out.” A “C” grade connotes average. This is an incongruity on this film. This film is great in my opinion, possibly unbearable in others’ opinions, but certainly not “just okay.” Thank you.
Matthew Joseph McCabe
(P.S. – Don’t feel bad. I am learned, I studied a master in Roger Ebert, and I have extensive and varied interests/background in the English language, literature, and popular culture. There will come a day when you and I work together, I believe. Hopefully though, we are not so much victims of fate as are the characters in Out of the Furnace!)
I agree. The script is weak. It’s a dull movie with nothing original to say.