Out of the Furnace

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Firstly, Christian Bale, like Sean Penn cannot really put a foot wrong in my book, having said that, I was disappointed with his character, far too much focus on mood shots and little on character development. Unlike other reviewers, a slow burn when cast correctly is a joy to watch and for the first hour I thought we had another 'Deerhunters', 'Nil By Mouth', 'Mystic River' & 'North Country' gritty realism of real life, not some $1M bonus farce created by selling hedged funds that 99% of people cannot relate to. However, cracks appeared quickly in how fast Bale was jailed, how quick his woman left him and how little their relationship mattered to the plot. I want to care for the characters and Saldana got zero screen time to care for her, so much so that when she announced her 'big' news, who really cared? Sam Shepherd was woefully underused and in my honest opinion, I felt sorry for the talent not utilized, again showing no respect to the role or character, he may as well have not been there. Whitaker was OK, but again, lack of promotion of the character, why would Saldana choose him over Bale? why would she not visit prison? Prison time was a joke and may as well not have been there. Affleck, whose voice irritates, really stepped up as did Willem Dafoe, who I am really enjoying of late in his roles and finally Woody Harrelson was on fire in this role. What you have here is a film that concentrates its focus in the wrong areas, relying far too much on a good cast list to carry it through and considering it is nearly 2 hours long seems rushed at the end. I still recommend this film simply as watching Bale & Harrelson is like watching Tiger Woods or Ronaldo.....even if they have a bad day, they are worth the entrance fee alone.

Absolutely abysmal. Virtually nothing made sense. The characters had no original distinctions. I agree with most here that the acting was top- notch but for what? Crazy Heart was pretty solid, if a bit overrated. I always thought it was a tad..off though and I couldn't put my finger on just why. I get it now. While it had some terrific scenes and Jeff Bridges turned in another powerful performance, it just didn't seem to jive with the salt-of-the-Earth country genre folks depicted. Like, the young woman's obsession with an elderly singer, despite his prior fame. And now, after watching OOTF (quite an appropriate acronym for this piece of crap), it all makes sense. Scott Cooper has no business telling stories about this particular group of Americans. He may have been born in Virginia but so little resembles reality, in my opinion. Forrest Whittaker's character is just weird, with an unsettling voice and cadence. Casey Affleck made decisions that made no sense. After begging low grade fight organizer John Petty for a chance to scrap with his New Jersey connections he goes up there and immediately acts like a complete, rude a-hole. For no reason. But perhaps the stupidest scene is the meth buy. Somebody on these boards already described why it was so bad but no drug transaction in the history of the controlled substance has ever gone down that way. "yes, Mr. Complete Stranger, I'll sell you a fairly good amount of this very illegal and federally targeted drug and when you are a jerk to me I won't mind and when you refuse, twice, to even sample the product so I can be sure you're legit, I don't mind. Then, when you forget the baggie I'll run it outside to you." So &%$* stupid it still upsets me as I think about it. There was no mystery, the tension died as soon as Affleck's corpse was found. For some reason the police decided not to pursue a capitol crime they had audio taped evidence of. This is the biggest waste of talent and anger-inducing film I've seen since Prometheus. Who read this script and thought "hey, good flick!"? It truly had to be a literal moron.

I had high expectations for "Out of the Furnace". I'll watch any film starring Christian Bale, and the rest of the cast -and especially the reviews- only made me more eager to see it. I want to be careful not to spoil the plot, but frankly there's not much to spoil. When the credits rolled I was left wondering what the point of sitting through these two hours actually was. Casey Affleck is certainly a good actor, but he has yet to star in a great movie. Woody Harrelson is decent as a stereotypical bad guy. Bale is excellent as always, and the rest of cast are reduced to mere props. What a let down! 2013 is a year to forget in Hollywood.