Review of Out of the Furnace (2013) by Rocknblues 8 — 01 Feb 2014

Solid Film. The performances are great.... Harrelson is pretty frightening, and Affleck and Bale are both at the top of their games. Zoe Saldana does well with what she has to work with, but she does not have a lot to chew on. Sadly, she is the only female in the movie as this is a macho male flick with some violence at times.

The biggest problem is that the script does not pack a great punch. And it's not even that the movie is unoriginal... It's just that Cooper relies on the actors too much. Christian Bale and Whitaker have some decent chemistry, but they don't really do anything with the fact that their characters are basically become rivals at some point. After one scene that they share at the police station the ball is just dropped after that. None of the relationships are developed properly and that is a letdown.

Cooper is a pretty solid director that gets good performances out of his actors, but he would be better off to let others write his scripts. The script is just so incoherent. Bale's character goes to jail at one point and we don't even find out for how long or anything. Really lazy writing. The editing is not all that great either... Really, I'm giving this a passing grade only because the actors give it their all, but even Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson can't totally save this thing.