A review I wrote for the Leeds Student Newspaper on Christian Bale's latest appearance in Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace.
The life of Russell Baze (Christian Bale) is littered with misfortune. Working at a monotonous steel mill in West Braddock, Pennsylvania, his father is terminally ill while his brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) returns intermittently from Iraq, each time bearing a greater trauma than the last. When Rodney disappears after his involvement with a feral criminal circle in the Northeast and the local police are ineffective in their search, Russell must seek out his brother and ultimately, justice.
Out of the Furnace is Scott Cooper’s second dip into the directorial pool following his 2009 film Crazy Heart, and similarly boasts an impressive cast that surpasses the sometimes formulaic screenplay (Zoe Saldana, Sam Shephard, Willem Dafoe and Forest Whitaker also star). Christian Bale successfully upholds his signature magnetism with his ever-effortless presence and immersion into the character of the ill-fated protagonist. In polar opposition to his role as con man Irving Rosenfeld in the recent American Hustle, Bale presents a portrait of the American everyman: downtrodden, unlucky and working an exhausting dead end job in a claustrophobic time of industrial depression. However, Woody Harrelson steals the show with his exquisitely abhorrent portrayal of the meth-injecting, chill-inducing sociopath Harlan DeGroat, leader of the group of ‘inbred’ New Jersey mountain dwellers.
Opening at a drive-in cinema screening of The Midnight Meat Train, as the psychotic DeGroat tries to force a hot dog down his date’s throat and then assaults an onlooker, Out of the Furnace’s undercurrent of inescapable, crazed violence and tone of bleak dejection is established from the outset. This is not one for the squeamish; a constant barrage of bloody knuckles to the jaw and elbows to the eye socket mean you will find yourself perpetually clenching your teeth as you repeatedly hear the nauseating crunch of bone on bone. The fight scenes, although at times a little unrealistic with their overzealous sound effects, are still affecting and give the viewer a sense of the terrifying nature of finding oneself embroiled in a situation spiralling beyond control, in an environment devoid of reason.
Despite the occasional cliché such as a blatant parallel sequence involving a deer hunt and Rodney’s pivotal fight, Out of the Furnace succeeds in fostering a tension throughout that grabs you by the throat as if you were involved in one of its bare-knuckle fights. With the barren yet beautiful cinematography, evocative and agitated score, and the cast’s collective ability to engage you with the desolate and claustrophobic circumstances of brotherly love and vengeance, the film will stay with you well after you leave the cinema—possibly feeling a bit down on life but nonetheless reeling from a display of such brilliant performances.
pic: thesundaytimes
Out of the Furnace is Scott Cooper’s second dip into the directorial pool following his 2009 film Crazy Heart, and similarly boasts an impressive cast that surpasses the sometimes formulaic screenplay (Zoe Saldana, Sam Shephard, Willem Dafoe and Forest Whitaker also star). Christian Bale successfully upholds his signature magnetism with his ever-effortless presence and immersion into the character of the ill-fated protagonist. In polar opposition to his role as con man Irving Rosenfeld in the recent American Hustle, Bale presents a portrait of the American everyman: downtrodden, unlucky and working an exhausting dead end job in a claustrophobic time of industrial depression. However, Woody Harrelson steals the show with his exquisitely abhorrent portrayal of the meth-injecting, chill-inducing sociopath Harlan DeGroat, leader of the group of ‘inbred’ New Jersey mountain dwellers.
Opening at a drive-in cinema screening of The Midnight Meat Train, as the psychotic DeGroat tries to force a hot dog down his date’s throat and then assaults an onlooker, Out of the Furnace’s undercurrent of inescapable, crazed violence and tone of bleak dejection is established from the outset. This is not one for the squeamish; a constant barrage of bloody knuckles to the jaw and elbows to the eye socket mean you will find yourself perpetually clenching your teeth as you repeatedly hear the nauseating crunch of bone on bone. The fight scenes, although at times a little unrealistic with their overzealous sound effects, are still affecting and give the viewer a sense of the terrifying nature of finding oneself embroiled in a situation spiralling beyond control, in an environment devoid of reason.
Despite the occasional cliché such as a blatant parallel sequence involving a deer hunt and Rodney’s pivotal fight, Out of the Furnace succeeds in fostering a tension throughout that grabs you by the throat as if you were involved in one of its bare-knuckle fights. With the barren yet beautiful cinematography, evocative and agitated score, and the cast’s collective ability to engage you with the desolate and claustrophobic circumstances of brotherly love and vengeance, the film will stay with you well after you leave the cinema—possibly feeling a bit down on life but nonetheless reeling from a display of such brilliant performances.
