Out Of The Furnace

Out Of The Furnace tells the story of two brothers Russell (Christian Bale) and Rodney (Casey Affleck) Baze, one a hard working, salt of the earth furnace worker and the other a US serviceman spiraling out of control, following numerous tours in the Middle East.

Russell tries, as he seemingly always has, to look after Rodney, even at the risk of his own life, something that shows up regularly throughout the film.

Christian Bale, as with all of his roles, bring an authenticity to his portrayal of Russell. He never tries to inject him unrealistic intelligence or bravery. This is a hard working family man, who is looking out for his brother. He does what he thinks is best, even when at times we know it's the wrong thing to do. He is blinded by his desperation to help Rodney and the consequences of his actions just aren't at the front of his mind. A decision he makes towards the end of the film involving a phone call is the best example of Russell being too desperate to think of what could happen, or who could be be harmed as a result of his choice.

Russell is probably one of Bale's straightest characters. He is stoic and a genuinely good man. He treats people, I imagine, how he wants to be treated and the best work from the character comes when Russell pushes himself out of his comfort zone or has to push back against his normal behaviour, to be violent or go against and question the police.

Out of the Furnace is a film that definitely focuses more on its characters than it does its plot, which could be one reason for it's pretty stellar cast of character actors.

Willem Dafoe and Forest Whitaker are two that stand out in small but important roles. However, I would have liked to have gotten more plot, especially about the hill people and their own little world. A bit of mystique is great, but when it has that much potential, explore it more. Show us the difference in the two worlds.

Running at just under two hours, which for me flew by, I would have liked to have had more plot and seen or learnt more about Rodney and his time with the Army. There is a small prison section that occurs whilst Rodney is on tour, for me this would have been a a prime place to have expanded, maybe even bringing in the hill people as well, so we have three threads going at once. The characters and performances are easily the films biggest strength, it would have just been nice to have seen them do more.

As mentioned already, the cast is head and shoulders the best thing about this film and Bale goes a great job of leading them, but the supporting cast definitely shouldn't be overlooked, they all have the same amount of screen time and do much more than just fill out the world and give Russell people to interact with. They create a history and bring it to everything they do, they are a part of this world and belong to it, and at no point did I find any character forced or overblown.

Harrelson’s DeGroat is a great villain, a force of nature who lives by his own rules and governs the hills with an iron fist and is completely unafraid of any man. But I wanted more of him. Mystery is good, but when you have such an oddball character who is unafraid to do anything, then give us more of him. It certainly worked in No Country For Old Men.

One of the criticisms I have seen of the film the amount of references to other films, classics at that. The final shot, which clearly pays homage to The Godfather series, is probably the most notable. Although there are bits and pieces, such as narrative tricks or general look and tone that recall films such as Silence of the Lambs or The Deer Hunter, none of which are hard to spot, so maybe that is why the point has been raised so much.

The final shot is the only one that stood out, purely because of its length and the numerous other ways it could have been done. Move the camera, or the character away from the window and director Scott Cooper may have achieved the same meaning to the shot/scene, but without such an obvious of a comparison.

The other nod is a narrative trick similar to climax of Silence of the Lambs, but for me this is not something that is unique to one film. Lambs arguably pulls it off better, as it has a real sting with who is at the door when Bill opens, whereas in Furnace, you already know where the character is when you begin to put together the locations and timeframe. Used later in the film, it may have worked better.

I really looked forward to Out of the Furnace and I wasn't let down, if anything I wanted more from it, to spend more time there, to explore the world and build and bigger plot for all these great characters to interact in. There can't be many better comments about a film than seeing it and wanting more.

The one homage it could have paid to The Godfather or The Deer Hunter, is that it didn't was in this regard.

Director: Scott Cooper

Writers: Scott Cooper and Brad Ingelsby

Now You See Me

Usually when I see film I tend to form a fairly consistent opinion of it shortly after seeing it, then maybe, a second viewing may change my opinion of it, The Master is an example of this (No, i’m not comparing Now You See Me with The Master), where my opinion actually improved. But with Now You See Me, I just left with the feeling of I JUST DON’T CARE.

The plot of the film is fairly straight forward, despite what the trailers promise (they also give away a ridiculous amount of the plot and the twists), it has none of the wit and ingenuity of the great heist films that work on similar ideas, such as Oceans Eleven or the narrative complexity of The Prestige.

We follow four magicians, brought together for some long drawn out, and oh my is it, scam/trick/heist/just-get-on-with-it that you have to wait for the end to see it all pan out.

I would go through the characters and give you a breakdown of the performance, but frankly most of them are largely forgettable, two dimensional and uninteresting that I won’t waste your time, like the writers and director did with the insane amount of talent they had in their cast.

It is unfair to be hard on the cast, apart from their decision to sign on, although this one of these scripts that maybe looks great on the page, but the lack of any real depth to their characters should have stood out. Greats like Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are wasted, then discarded at points in the film.

Jesse Eisenberg, whose normal style of witty delivery has been a pleasure to watch in his previous films, especially The Social Network, is wasted here on lines that are just clever for the sake of being clever, but aren’t actually clever. Maybe if someone else had been the head magician/person in charge it wouldn’t have seen so out of place.

Woody Harrelson is probably the only character who lives up to his potential, and this is because of how laid back and spot on his delivery is. This is in spite of the overtly cocky dialogue he is given, Harrelson has to work hard to make it entertaining.

The visuals which are interesting during the first act, begin to bore you, to the point where at the climax, it feels like a giant outdoor version of the Who wants to be a millionaire? Set, with massive spotlights turning on and off every few seconds accompanied by loud music and sound effects that would make Michael Bay think about toning it down.

With any kind of magic/heist film there is a lot of sleight of hand visually and suspension of disbelief required, but here the level needed is farcical. Getting more and more ridiculous as we progress from trick to trick. Another frustration, is that too much of the technology featured in the final trick is unexplained, where they had previously outlined everything, here they blissfully omit. It is important to play fair, to a degree with the audience with plots like this, but here they don’t and it just comes across as cheap. They asked questions they didn’t have the answer to.

Unlike World War Z where it was the last half an hour that I felt let it down, here after a somewhat bearable first 25 minutes, the film nose dives into boredom, smugness and delusions of grandeur as it tricks itself into thinking that something interesting is happening on the screen, and that you should care what happens. You shouldn’t.