Starring: Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Forest Whittaker, Tom Bower, Willem Dafoe
Distributor: Independent
Runtime: 106 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2014
| 
| 
This is a film which depends on word-of-mouth from audiences.
Many audiences seeing the film will find it too grim, its outlook too bleak, some of its violence too confronting, and will advise others not to go to see the film. On the other hand, film buffs who appreciate well-made films, no matter how depressing in their presentation of character and society, will recommend other buffs to see it.
The setting is an industrial area in the countryside of Pennsylvania as well is the hills of the state of New Jersey. The look of the film is wintry, iron-grey in its tone. The factories look ugly, inside and out. And the action of the film takes place in some squalid settings, especially for bare-knuckle fights, bars and clubs, and dingy houses. Commentators have noted that it is a depressing picture of the United States since the world financial collapse and a picture of the desperation of people struggling to make a living, as well as people who are exploiters and their victims. The title indicates the theme, people trying to escape from the furnace but still in the fire.
The film was written and directed by Scott Cooper who made the interesting film about travelling singers, Crazy Heart.
Apart from the effectively bleak photography and the use of the locations, the film has a fine cast. Now in his middle age, former child star, Christian Bale, has proven himself a considerable actor (Oscar for The Fighter, award nominations for American Hustle). Here, he is an ordinary man, struggling to make a living, looking out for his younger brother (Casey Affleck) who is about to go out and serve in the Middle East wars. Carelessly drinking and driving, he is responsible for the death of a child in a car accident. He serves his time and then comes out to re-establish his life. His wife (Zoe Saldana) has left him for the local police officer (Forest Whitaker). His brother has returned from his service and is a changed person, for a desperate worse. He has been involved in bareknuckle fights, trying to pay off other debts to a small-time entrepreneur (Willem Dafoe).
But, right from the beginning of the film, we have been alerted and warned. The film is introduced at a drive-in, where Woody Harrelson is brutally violent towards a woman and some of the patrons of the drive-in. Then he disappears from the film only to be reintroduced in an even more violent and brutal manner.
By this time, the audience will realise that Out of the Furnace is going to be something of a revenge film with a touch of the vigilante. And that it is the Christian Bale character, despite pleas and warnings, who will do the confronting, trying to achieve some kind of justice.
In most ways this is a film to be admired rather than enjoyed, the dirty mirror, so to speak, reflecting the downside of 21st-century American society.
12 Random Films…
