When Rodney Baze (Casey Affleck) gets involved with the wrong type of people while taking part in illegal bare-knuckle boxing and goes missing, his hard-working brother Russell (Christian Bale) sets out to find him. With little help from the local police, he takes matters into his own hands to track down suspect Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson) who lives in and controls the mountains outside the town.
Out of the Furnace has been sold as a type of Death Wish-esque, one man on his own revenge thriller. This will inevitably lead to disappointment for those expecting an action-packed thriller when in fact it’s more of a slow-burning character piece that happens to have some action moments.
Director Scott Cooper, who previously made the moving music drama Crazy Heart, takes his time to tell this story of brotherly love, loyalty and American myth – Harrelson’s dangerous Harlan DeGroat plays as a sort of all-feared mythical bogeyman who lives up on the mountain dealing out justice. Cooper creates a palpably brooding atmosphere in which he steeps his audience, conjuring a real sense of time and place.
The film’s tone won’t be for everyone but where some will see a slow-as-treacle tale that takes forever to get to the point, if you’re willing to just be with the film then it provides for a sufficiently rich experience. The cinematography is at once beautiful and grungy, giving it that feeling of lived-in believability, while the score by Dickon Hinchcliffe helps give it an ominous sense of both melancholy and tension.
It’s filled with great actors and performances, from Christian Bale giving a rather insular, things bubbling away under the surface type of performance to the always reliable Casey Affleck as his brother to Harrelson as the intimidating DeGroat, whose presence is felt throughout even when he’s not on-screen. Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe and Sam Shepard round out the impressive cast who alone make it worth seeing.
After allowing us the time to get to know the characters and their motivations, the film then picks up the pace somewhat as it moves towards the inevitable final showdown. It’s actually a weaker film the more it morphs into the action thriller that it’s been sold as, culminating in an ending that’s both fitting and hackneyed. It’s this uneven structure and inability to sustain what makes the first half so good that stops it from achieving its loftier ambitions.
Cooper’s follow-up feature is an admirable attempt to emulate the type of existential drama thriller we saw plenty of in the ‘70s but rarely see anymore. Peppered with moments of pretty shocking violence, it evokes the likes of The Deer Hunter, No Country for Old Men and last year’s underrated Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, to name but a few. The film’s rich atmosphere and strong performances make it worth seeing even if it falls short of being great.
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Out of the Furnace is released in UK cinemas on January 29th.