Out of the Furnace isn’t a movie, it’s two of them: one a violent, turgid melodrama about underground fight clubs, kidnapping and revenge, and the other a serious, turgid melodrama about loss, stop-loss, the economy and anything else that could have plausibly transformed this unpleasant fiasco into an Oscar contender.
Granted, the performances are good, but no matter how heartrending Christian Bale can be as the lonely hero, no matter how wrathful and sympathetic Casey Affleck can be as Bale’s ill-fated brother, no matter how Willem Dafoe Willem Dafoe can be as the stock Willem Dafoe character, they’re simply wasted in a film that doesn’t have the common sense to either back up its dramatic ambitions with a meaningful plot, or to back up its exploitative by-the-numbers plot with enough entertainment to make you care about whether or not this has subtext.
AFI 2013 REVIEW: Fred Topel says Out of the Furnace is “sensitive to some poignant issues.”
Yes, that plot is simplicity: Christian Bale is a decent, hard-working man. Casey Affleck is his war veteran brother, who went through so many traumas overseas that he feels like he shouldn’t have to turn in an honest day’s work anymore. Bale tries to take care of his brother, but when tragedy strikes and Affleck is left to his own devices for years, he winds up fighting in bare knuckle brawls for a criminal played by Willem Dafoe, and running afoul of a skeevy, animalistic drug kingpin played by Woody Harrelson. Soon – actually strike that, after a very long time – Affleck goes missing and Bale resorts to violence to get him back… if there’s anything left of him, of course.
It’s so simple that it took a lot of effort to screw it up. Director Scott Cooper tries to elevate every uncomplicated scene to greatness with moody lighting, slow pacing, pompous music and meaningful tears. Cooper’s previous film was the sensitive, well-crafted country music drama Crazy Heart, and it appears as if his follow-up has fallen victim to that same sensitivity. Out of the Furnace plays as if the storyteller can’t get over how sad this movie is, how disappointing it is that all these people were forced to live through the events of Out of the Furnace, and how important it is that the every single member of the audience learns something from their mistakes, damn it, and that they don’t find an individual iota of pleasure in a scant second of this tale.
Not every movie has to entertain, but not every movie turns an entertaining idea into something miserable and expects a reward. The acting is impressive, no doubt, it just looks for all the world like the cast got lost on their way to a Cormac McCarthy adaptation and accidentally wound up in a straight-to-video Steven Seagal movie instead.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
