Out of the Furnace (2013)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

OK won't make it too long; just to say that some accents here remind me Michael Cimino's masterpiece: Pittsburgh vicinity, steel factories, deep America, war veterans, unemployed people, darkness, and a deer hunter scene. Besides, that's for me a true film noir.

It was definitely a waste of 2 hours but I couldn't sleep so what the heck, I watched it. I feel badly for people who spent money to see this dreck. At least on cable there are subtitles so I could read what the actors were mumbling!I'd ask how so many good actors could make such a boring movie, but unfortunately these days that's becoming more common.

One of the Baze brothers, Christian Bale, is sent to prison for his involvement in a fatal traffic accident. His beautiful girl friend, Zoe Saldana, an impressive actress, hooks up during his absence with the well-meaning local police chief, Forest Whitaker, so she's lost to him. Moral: If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.His younger brother, Casey Affleck, joins the army and is sent to the Middle East. He returns shattered by his experiences in combat and is searching for some way out of the battered old industrial town of Braddok, Pennsylvania. Affleck chooses bare knuckle fights in remote places where the rules, if they exist at all, resemble those of cage fighters. People bet on one or the other and make or lose money. I don't believe there are such underground fights, any more than I believed that ex soldiers would play Russian roulette for money in "The Deer Hunter," which this film in some ways resembles. But let it go.The small town fist fights in Braddock are for nickels and dimes. It's up in the Ramapo Mountains of New Jersey, a five hour drive, that the real money is to be made and that's where Affleck wants to go. His de facto manager, Willem Dafoe, does what he can to discourage him. The network up there is run by the brutal Woody Harrelson, looking just fine as the most soft-spoken and menacing looking villain you can imagine. Affleck insists. Both he and Dafoe pay the price of riding on the wild side.This activates the glands governing the revenge motive in his brother Christian Bale. The two brothers shared the same house in Braddock but while Bale joined the community and attempted to make up for his traffic accident and shed his ex-con identity, Affleck was always restless. Whitaker the cop is doing what he can to assist the Jersey police but how much can he do from shabby Braddock? Bale apparently cooperates with the New Jersey police in a raid on Harrelson's den of iniquity but, surprise! Although we see Harrelson shooting up and whooping in his crack high and the police bust through the door, rifles raised, shouting "Police!", it turns out that the cross-cutting was deceitful because the cops were raiding an empty house. Harrelson was in another dump somewhere, straight out of "Silence of the Lambs." Well, what is there left for Bale to do except to lure Harrelson down to Braddock -- easy enough because somebody in Braddock owes him a great deal of money -- and take care of the situation himself by killing Harrelson himself, even while Whitaker shouts from a distance, "Don't do it. Drop your weapon!" He doesn't just shoot Harrelson dead. They have a ferocious fist fight first, one in which Harrelson despite being bashed over the head with a rifle butt, manages to pin Bale down and injure him by bopping foreheads. I hate that cliché because it violates Newton's third law. It should damage both foreheads equally.But Bale winds up on his feet, rifled aimed at the now supine Harrelson, and deliberately shoots him through either the upper thigh or the genitals with that hunting rifle. Harrelson howls with pain, climbs to his feet and stumbles away. Bale lets him get about 50 feet away before putting another bullet through his kidney. Harrelson, all bloody and lurching like a drunk, walks away into a grassy field, probably dying. This is the point at which Whitacker arrives and tries to dissuade Bale from finishing the job. No dice. At about 100 yards, Bale puts a third bullet through Harrelson's back. The victim staggers forward for a few seconds before dropping on his belly, spitting blood. Bale squats next to the dying man, whom he's never met, and asks, "Do you know who I am? I'm Rodney Baze's brother." Exit Harrelson.Let me get socially scientific for a moment. It's an occupational disease. The ending isn't really satisfying. Bale, who has been a nice guy throughout the film, the kind of guy so ridden with guilt that he places a bouquet at the site of his traffic accident to commemorate his victims, becomes a wily and deliberate murderer because, I guess, blood is thicker than the Criminal Penal Code or something.In sociology, the family is a primary institution, meaning it's the one you interact with on a daily basis and owe allegiance to. Cops are secondary institutions, like hospitals, banks, or DMV offices. They're at a remove from the family and in developed countries, secondary institutions have assumed many of the responsibilities of primary institutions, although how much they should interfere in family life is a matter of debate. That's why cops find "domestic disputes" so tricky and troublesome. That's why some of us want families to pay for their own health care out of their own pockets.In this film, Bale throws off the valid authority of Whitaker, representing the secondary institution of the police force, and devolves into a murderer prompted by blood allegiances, while the police could manage the situation with authority and no fuss. He's gone back to the rude values of the Hatfields and McCoys. Of course we all glow with satisfaction as the demonic Harrelson gets his just due, but it's not Bale's job to bring that about. Now Bale is a deliberate murderer, regardless of motive, and can expect to revisit the slams and have a long, long time to do penance.Nice photography in and around Braddock, a steel town that is now largely black and has become dilapidated after the collapse of the steel industry. In 2000, the per capita income was $13,135. That's pretty damned low, almost as low as mine.

What an all star cast. Bale, Shepard, Affleck (Casey, the talented one), Harrelson, Defoe. What a waste. This story-line had great potential, but I guess the trend in Hollywood today is to depress the hell out of every viewer in a desperate tactic to be "edgy." Here's an question for Hollywood screenwriters: will it kill you to try make movies with a tad bit of hope included? Now, excuse me, because after watching this, I need to make an appointment with my therapist.