Ever sat down to a movie you've heard nothing about, full of exemplary talent and a premise that's not too played-out? You know- that feeling of pleasant, hopeful expectancy- you're settling in, the opening shot's going okay, cue music... then a song starts wheezing away over the top of it all and it dawns on you. You're experiencing a taste-level indicator and the arrow's pointing downwards. That first whiff of corn. And then the thing unfolds and you can't decide if it was a solid idea that got smothered in cheesy development, or a cheesy kernel of a thing that almost got off the ground with far more help than it deserved. I always suffer a pavlovian clench when I see that thirsty Scott Free animation fronting anything these days and Out of the Furnace just reinforced that response. A flick that hadn't pinged my radar despite heavyweight backers and my fondness for the cast is always a dodgy prospect. Oh well. It was a slow Tuesday night and we took the plunge like the thrillseekers we are.
Plotwise, here tis; hardworking do-right guy Russell (Christian Bale) tries to keep his shit together in a dying mill town while his troubled veteran brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) entangles himself, with the aid of loan shark John (Willem Dafoe), in a bare-knuckle fighting ring run by psycho hillbilly Harlan (Woody Harrelson), attempting to exorcise demons and make rent. Russell's girlfriend (Zoe Saldana) bails when he goes down for a DUI, taking up with the local cop (Forest Whitaker). Things go from bad to worse, etc. etc. It's a basic-bitch scenario that could have gone either way; it's absolutely possible for worse arcs than this to be buoyed by an especially nuanced script and transcendent performances. Or they can be dragged by their own lugubrious weight in spite of any such advantages. It pains me, but in this instance I nominate door number two.
Out of the Furnace isn't a dead loss, and that makes its shortcomings all the more perplexing. The cast delivers, the production values are high and the dialogue, such as it is, is well handled. But (as seems to happen so often lately) what could have been so much more boils down to a lacklustre narrative poncing around in expensive, finely-wrought visuals, top-shelf players and noble intentions, signifying little. It almost gets off the ground a couple of times and you assure yourself that it surely must, only to watch it lapse back into blerg, adhering grimly to the conventions of its pedestrian trajectory instead of stepping off into something more.
Out of the Furnace isn't a dead loss, and that makes its shortcomings all the more perplexing. The cast delivers, the production values are high and the dialogue, such as it is, is well handled. But (as seems to happen so often lately) what could have been so much more boils down to a lacklustre narrative poncing around in expensive, finely-wrought visuals, top-shelf players and noble intentions, signifying little. It almost gets off the ground a couple of times and you assure yourself that it surely must, only to watch it lapse back into blerg, adhering grimly to the conventions of its pedestrian trajectory instead of stepping off into something more.
Ultimately, Out of the Furnace is sunk by two related defects. The plot is a shower of romanticised bollocks, for one. As a resident of a formerly industrial barrio, I can shoot holes in that shit all day. In reality, all of these characters would be skinny-fat, rat-faced, mullet-greasing xenophobic meth monkeys, not just Harrelson's 'inbred'. Such is the peril of voicing a complex story via sympathetic/at least absorbing characters amid poverty and generational decline; the latter are such depressingly universal experiences that you can't swing and miss about any of it, really. The drug-buying scene; oh honey, no. Tweaky Appalachian hood rats do not generally adopt you and take you back to their cook house, even if you do respeck their whip. Your struggling heroes probably don't perform spontaneous tokens of reverent personal decency and everyone knows dignity and principle are the first things dumped on the verge when socioeconomic shit gets real. And don't get me started on the tattoos. Which leads me to the second point- the wet-dream cast as a bone of contention. While Harrelson, Dafoe and Saldana (if I see one more token woman-as-passive-adjunct in the next month, I'm going to choke somebody out) can do low-end, Bale in particular is a poor fit for deprivation, trying his best to disguise that physical noblesse that is so fundamental to his onscreen presence. Whitaker just sort of shuffles around stolidly. Affleck girns and slouches and affects volatility but never gets there, hampered by inconsistency of characterisation in a script that can't seem to decide if he is inarticulate or not. See that squishyface he's trying for on the poster? Disney ghetto. The clunky touches don't stop there; the spliced fight/hunting scene that had me girning and slouching (the dewy-eyed deer; it burns!) is quite emblematic of the film's failings as a whole.
Watch Out of the Furnace on a slow night, by all means; it's a dog, but we didn't hate-hate it. The superlative visual tour of America's arse-end alone is worth your rental dime and since I just pecked the eyes out of it for you, you can leave your critical faculties in the charger.
Watch Out of the Furnace on a slow night, by all means; it's a dog, but we didn't hate-hate it. The superlative visual tour of America's arse-end alone is worth your rental dime and since I just pecked the eyes out of it for you, you can leave your critical faculties in the charger.
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