Review of Out of the Furnace (2013) by Noah C — 15 Mar 2014

Gritty and raw accompanied by a fantastic cast, Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace, is a fantastic character study of the modern American reality of broken dreams and the rigid lifestyle that is accompanied by that broken dream.

Rodney Baze along with many other characters in the film is suffering by his current economic state and is willing to risk tooth and nail to pay of his debts to survive. Cooper's social commentary of the true modern American reality is a bold yet brutally truthful depiction of our current state as a country; only aiding his revenge tail is this biting social commentary.

Cooper's direction is perfection personified with his ability to emancipate the tone and the state of mind of his characters through his excellent framing and lighting. The film is visually compelling, with Cooper's wonderful direction of his actors only aiding the presentation of the film.

Every character in the film feels authentic, delivering down to earth dialogue that does not feel like it was written by a screen writer down at their nearest Starbucks. The incredibly difficult task of making a film feel authentic is absolutely no issue for Cooper thanks to his excellent skills of directing.

The soundtrack is appropriately somber given the context of the film which makes the films score only strengthen the presentation of the film. Great screen writing is a hard skill to come by in film due to the fact that most filmmakers are only concerned with creating compelling shots, being apathetic to nearly every other aspect of the filmmaking process.

Thankfully Scott Cooper considered the importance of a great screenplay and made sure that every aspect of the script feel authentic and real, creating strong dialogue to support the star studded cast.

Perhaps the best aspect of Out of the Furnace is the absolutely breath taking performances given by the cast with each performance aiding the authenticity and realism of Coopers vision. The weakest link is unsurprisingly Zoe Saldana whom doesn't feel truly real as character, unlike the rest of the cast.

Undoubtedly the best performances in the film belong to Casey Affleck, Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson whom are heartbreaking, courageous and terrifying respectively, all of which are brutally authentic in the film.

Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace, is a brutally authentic revenge story aided with incredible performances, great directing and a virtuous screenplay.