Review of Out of the Furnace (2013) by Bantam — 16 Apr 2014

This is one of the best movies made in recent years. Woody Harralson's performance is blood-chilling and incredibly convincing in his visceral brutality and attitude. Bale's performance is excellent also, and this movie is much better than the other one he did this year though it did not receive nearly as much attention. I was especially surprised by Bale's excellence - while Harralson has played some real jerks in other movies, this kind of character seemed unlike any of the characters Bale has played before (the closest comparison might be his character in The Machinist, but mostly only because of the setting the characters find themselves in as blue-collar workers).

One reason this movie didn't get more attention is because it's a gritty drama that's not full of action sequences and explosions. If people had better tastes in movies, this would have been a blockbuster.